GOTH  CONGRESS  1 

zd  Session      I 


HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES 


/DOCUMENT 
0.  572 


DEPARTMENT  OF  THE  INTERIOR 

FRANKLIN  K.  LANE,  Secretary 


UNITED  STATES  GEOLOGICAL  SURVEY 

GEORGE  OTIS  SMITH,  Director 
Bulletin  705 


CONSERVATION  THROUGH  ENGINEERING 


BY 


FRANKLIN  K.  LANE 


Extract  from  the  Annual  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior 


WASHINGTON 

GOVEENMENT    PRINTING    OFFIOB 
1920 


HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVE^    ..,  -,  '(-D°CUB£?£ 

•  *     •       *•*/**   **«*r    *%"«  0/« 


DEPARTMENT  OF  THE  INTERIOR 

FRANKLIN  K.  LANE,  Secretary 


UNITED  STATES  GEOLOGICAL  SURVEY 

GEORGE  OTIS  SMITH,  Director 
Bulletin  705 


CONSERVATION  THROUGH  ENGINEERING 

BY 

FRANKLIN  K.  LANE 

Extract  from  the  Annual  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior 


'    . 

\ 


1 

\ 


WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT    PRINTING    OFFICE 

1920 


i    H 
•'.-, 


CONTENTS. 


Page. 

The  coal  strike 1 

National  stock-taking 3 

Coal  as  a  national  asset 3 

Public  responsibility 4 

The  miners'  year 5 

Have  we  too  many  mines  and  miners? 7 

The  long  view 7 

Saving  coal 9 

Coal  and  coal 10 

Expansion  abroad 11 

Saving  coal  by  saving  electricity 11 

White  coal  and  black .   12 

The  age  of  petroleum ^ . 13 

Oil  shale 15 

Save  oil 16 

Use  the  Diesel  engine 17 

Wanted — a  foreign  supply 18 

By  way  of  summary 20 

Land  development 22 

A  program  of  progress ; 22 

Garden  homes  for  the  people 23 

Reclamation  by  district  organization 24 

Soldier-settlement  legislation., 27 

Alaska :_  29 

Matanuska  coal 32 

Save  and  develop  Americans 32 

in 


50693; 


NOTE. 


The  plea  for  constructive  policies  contained  in  the  report  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Interior  to  the  President  deserves  a  hearing  also  by 
the  engineers  and  business  men  who  are  developing  the  power  re- 
sources of  the  country.  The  largest  conservation  for  the  future  can 
come  only  through  the  wisest  engineering  of  the  present. 

The  conditions  under  which  the  utilization  of  natural  resources  is  de- 
manded are  outlined  by  Secretary  Lane,  and  it  will  be  noted  that  the 
program  recommended  calls  for  the  cooperation  of  engineer  and 
legislator.  To  bring  this  power  inventory  to  the  attention  of  the 
men  who  furnish  the  Nation  with  its  coal  and  oil  and  electricity, 
this  extract  from  the  administrative  report  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Interior  is  reprinted  as  a  bulletin  of  the  United  States  Geological 
Survey. 


IV 


CONSERVATION  THROUGH  ENGINEERING ' 


By  FRANKLIN  K.  LANE. 


In  an  age  of  machinery  the  measure  of  a  people's  industrial 
capacity  seems  to  be  surely  fixed  by  its  motive  power  possibilities. 
Civilized  nations  regard  an  adequate  fuel  supply  as  the  very  founda- 
tion of  national  prosperity — indeed,  almost  as  the  Very  foundation 
of  national  possibility.  I  am  convinced  that  there  will  be  a  reaction 
against  the  intense  industrialism  of  the  present,  butj~as  it  must 
be  agreed  that  the  race  for  industrial  supremacy  is  on  between  the  , 
nations  of  the  world,  America  may  well  take  stock  of  her  own  power 
possibilities  and  concern  herself  more  actively  with  their  develop- 
ment and  wisest  use. 

THE  COAL  STRIKE. 

The  coal  strike  has  brought  concretely  before  us  the  disturbing  • 
fact  that  modern  society  is  so  involved  that  we  live  virtually  by   ' 
unanimous  consent.     Let  less  than  one-half  of  1  per  cent  of  our 
population  quit  their  work  of  digging  coal  and  we  are  threatened    \ 
with  the  combined  horrors  of  pestilence  and  famine. 

It  did  not  take  many  hours  after  it  was  realized  that  the  coal 
miners  were  in  earnest  for  the  American  imagination  to  conceive 
what  might  be  the  state  of  the  country  in  perhaps  another  30  days. 
Industries  closed,  railroads  stopped,  streets  dark,  food  cut  off,  houses 
freezing,  idle  men  by  the  million  hungry  and  in  the  dark — this  was 
the  picture,  and  not  a  ver}^  pleasant  one  to  contemplate.  There  was 
an  immediate  demand  for  facts. 

How  much  coal  is  normally  mined  in  this  country  ? 

By  whom  is  it  mined  ? 

What  is  its  quality  ? 

To  what  uses  is  it  put  ? 

Who  gets  it? 

1  Extract  from  the  annual  report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  for  the  fiscal  year 
ended  June  30.  1919.  The  page  numbers  are  the  same  as  those  in  the  report. 

1 


;{}   CONSEEYJitl'ON    THROUGH   ENGINEERING. 

iU<Ai\«iBfe^'c9iild-  be,  mined  if  coal  were  conserved  instead  of 
wasted  ? 

What  better  methods  have  been  developed  for  using  coal  than 
those  of  ancient  custom? 

Who  is  to  blame  that  so  small  a  supply  is  on  the  surface  ? 

Why  should  we  live  from  day  to  day  in  so  vital  a  matter  as  a 
fuel  supply? 

What  substitutes  can  be  found  for  coal  and  how  quickly  may  these 
be  made  available? 

This  is  by  no  means  an  exhaustive  category  of  the  questions  which 
were  put  to  this  department  when  the  strike  came.  And  these  came 
tumbling  in  by  wire,  by  mail,  by  hand,  from  all  parts  of  the  country, 
mixed  with  disquisitions  upon  the  duty  of  Government,  the  rights  of 
individuals  as  against  the  rights  of  society,  the  need  for  strength  in 
times  of  crisis,  calls  for  nationalization  of  the  coal  industry,  for  the 
destruction  of  labor  unions,  for  troops  to  mine  coal,  and  much  else 
that  was  more  or  less  germane  to  the  question  before  the  country. 

Many  of  these  questions  we  were  able  to  answer.  But  if  coal 
operators  themselves  had  not  carried  over  the  statistical  machinery 
developed  during  the  war,  we  would  have  been  forced  to  the  humiliat- 
ing confession  that  we  did  not  know  facts  which  at  the  time  Avere  of 
the  most  vital  importance. 

In  a  time  of  stress  it  is  not  enough  to  be  able  to  say  that  the  United 
States  contains  more  than  one-half  of  the  known  world  supply  of 
coal ;  that  we,  while  only  8  per  cent  of  the  world's  population,  pro- 
duce annually  46  per  cent  of  all  coal  that  is  taken  from  the  ground ; 
that  35  per  cent  of  the  railroad  traffic  is  coal;  that  in  less  than  100 
years  we  have  grown  in  production  from  100,000  tons  to  700,000,000 
tons  per  annum;  that  if  last  year's  coal  were  used  as  construction 
material  it  would  build  a  wall  as  huge  as  the  Great  Wall  of  China 
around  every  boundary  of  the  United  States  from  Maine  to  Van- 
couver, down  the  Pacific  to  San  Diego  and  eastward  following  the 
Mexican  border  and  the  coast  to  Maine  again;  and  that  this  same 
coal  contains  latent  power  sufficient  to  lift  this  same  wall  200  miles 
high  in  the  air,  according  to  one  of  our  greatest  engineers  (Stein- 
metz). 

Such  facts  are  surely  startling.  They  serve  to  stimulate  a  certain 
pride  and  give  us  a  great  confidence  in  our  industrial  future ;  yet  they 
are  not  as  immediately  important,  when  the  mines  threaten  to  close, 
as  would  be  a  few  figures  showing  how  much  coal  we  have  in  stock 
piles  and  where  it  is !  And  months  since  we  called  upon  Congress  to 
grant  the  money  that  we  might  secure  these  figures,  but  no  notice 
was  taken  of  the  urged  requests  until,  late  in  the  summer,  a  committee 
of  the  Senate  awoke  to  this  need  and  indorsed  our  petition. 


CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING.  3 

NATIONAL    STOCK    TAKING. 

The  Government  should  have  a  more  complete  knowledge  of  the 
coal  and  of  other  foundation  industries  than  can  be  found  elsewhere, 
and  we  should  not  fear  national  stock  taking  as  a  continuing  process. 
It  is  indeed  the  beginning  of  wisdom.  The  war  revealed  to  us  how 
delinquent  in  this  regard  we  had  been  in  the  past.  One  day  when  the 
full  story  is  told  of  the  struggle  of  the  Army  engineer  to  meet  war 
emergency  demands,  and  this  is  supplemented  by  the  tale  of  the 
effort  made  by  the  Council  of  National  Defense  and  the  War  In- 
dustries Board,  it  will  be  realized  more  seriously  than  now  how  lit- 
tle of  stock  taking  we  have  done  in  this  generous,  optimistic  land. 

When  any  such  undertaking  is  proposed,  however,  it  at  once  ap~ 
pears  to  arouse  the  fear  that  it  is  somehow  the  beginning  of  a 
malevolent  policy  called  "  conservation,"  and  conservation  has  had 
a  mean  meaning  to  many  ears.  It  connoted  stinginess  and  a  pro- 
vincial thrift,  spies  in  the  guise  of  Government  inspectors,  hateful 
interferences  with  individual  enterprise  and  initiative,  governmental 
haltings  and  cowardices,  and  all  the  constrictions  of  an  arrogant, 
narrow,  and  academic-minded  bureaucracy  which  can  not  think 
largely  and  feels  no  responsibility  for  national  progress.  Needless ; 
to  say  this  fear  should  not,  need  not  be.  The  word  should  mean 
helpfulness,  not  hindrance — helpfulness  to  all  who  wish  to  use  a 
resource  and  think  in  larger  terms  than  that  of  the  greatest  im- 
mediate profit;  hindrance  only  to  those  who  are  spendthrift.  ^A* 
conservation  which  results  in  a  stalemate  as  between  the  forces  of 
progress  and  governmental  inertia  is  criminal,  while  a  conservation 
that  is  based  on  the  fuller,  the  more  essential  use  of  a  resource  is 
statesmanship. 

To  know  what  we  have  and  what  we  can  do  with  it — and  what  we 
should  not  do  with  it,  also ! — is  a  policy  of  wisdom,  a  policy  of  last- 
ing progress.  And  in  furtherance  of  such  a  policy  the  first  step  is 
to  know  our  resources — our  national  wealth  in  things  and  in  their 
possibilities;  the  second  step  is  to  know  their  availability  for  im- 
mediate use;  the  third  step  is  to  guard  them  against  waste  either 
through  ignorance  or  wantonness ;  and  the  fourth  step  is  to  prolong 
their  life  by  invention  and  discovery. 

COAL  AS  A   NATIONAL  ASSET. 

Enough  has  been  said,  perhaps,  to  indicate  how  vast  are  the  fields 
of  coal  which  this  country  holds.  It  may  be  that  any  day  some 
genius  will  release  from  nature  a  power  that  will  make  of  little  value 
our  carboniferous  deposits  save  for  their  chemical  content.  By  the 
application  of  the  sun's  rays,  or  the  use  of  the  unceasing  motion  of 


4  CONSERVATION   THROUGH    ENGINEERING. 

the  waves  of  the  sea,  the  whole  dependence  of  the  world  upon  coal 
may  be  upset.  That  day,  however,  has  not  yet  come;  and  until  it 
does  we  may  consider  our  coal  as  the  surest  insurance  which  we  can 
have  that  America  can  meet  the  severest  contest  that  any  industrial 
rival  can  present.  It  is  more  than  insurance — it  is  an  asset  which 
can  bring  to  us  the  certainty  of  great  wealth,  and  if  wre  care  to  exer- 
cise it,  a  mastery  over  the  fate  and  fortunes  of  other  peoples. 

Next  to  the  fertility  of  our  soil,  we  have  no  physical  asset  as  valu- 
able as  our  coal  deposits.  Although  we  are  sometimes  alarmed  be- 
cause those  deposits  nearest  to  the  industrial  centers  are  rapidly 
declining  and  we  can  already  see  within  this  century  the  end  of  the 
anthracite  field,  if  it  is  made  to  yield  as  much  continuously  as  at 
present,  yet  it  is  a  safe  generalization  that  we  have  sufficient  coal  in 
the  United  States  to  last  our  people  for  centuries  to  come.  An  extra 
scuttleful  on  the  fire  or  shovelful  in  the  furnace  does  not  threaten 
the  life  of  the  race,  even  if  some  Russian  or  Chinese  of  the  future  does 
not  resolve  the  atom  or  harness  the  hidden  forces  of  the  air.  What- 
ever fears  other  nations  may  justifiably  have  as  to  their  ability  to  con- 
tinue in  the  vast  rush  of  a  machine  world,  there  can  be  no  question  of 
our  ability  to  last. 

The  present  strike,  however,  makes  quite  clear,  perhaps  for  the 
first  time,  that  it  is  not  the  coal  in  the  mountain  that  is  of  value,  but 
that  which  is  in  the  yard.  And  between  the  two  there  may  be  a 
great  gulf  fixed.  Therefore,  we  are  put  to  it  to  make  the  best  of 
what  we  have.  We  turn  from  telling  how  much  coal  we  use  to  a 
study  of  how  little  we  can  live  upon  and  do  the  day's  work  of  the 
Nation.  And  this  is,  I  believe,  as  it  should  be.  Indeed  I  feel  justi- 
fied in  saying  that  the  problem  of  this  strike  is  not  to  be  solved  in 
its  deeper  significances  until  we  know  much  more  about  coal  than  we 
know  now,  and  this  especially  as  to  the  manner  in  which  it  is  taken 
from  its  bed  and  brought  to  our  cellars. 

PUBLIC  RESPONSIBILITY. 

This  transfer  is  effected  by  a  kind  of  carrier  chain,  the  links  of 
Avhich  are  the  operator,  the  miner,  the  railroad,  and  the  public.  We 
choose,  to  please  ourselves,  the  link  in  this  chain  upon  which  we  place 
the  responsibility  for  its  failure  to  work;  but  before  indulging  our- 
selves in  abuse  of  arrogant  coal  barons  or  dictatorial  labor  unions, 
it  may  be  as  well  to  ask  whether  we  of  the  public  are  not  responsible 
in  some  part  for  this  failure  to  function.  I  do  not  refer  now  to  the 
failure  of  society  to  provide  methods  of  industrial  mediation  or  other 
adjustment  of  such  labor  difficulties.  My  question  is.  Avhether  or  not 
the  public  is  at  all  at  fault  when  a  nation  wealthy  beyond  all  others 


CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING.  5 

in  coal  finds  itself  with  so  small  a  supply  on  hand  when  a  strike 
comes — but  a  few  days  removed  from  the  gravest  troubles.  The  an- 
swer, to  my  mind,  turns  upon  the  manner  in  which  we  have  done 
business. 

We  have  been  content  to  go  without  insurance  as  to  a  coal  reserve. 
Each  day  has  brought  its  daily  supply.  There  was  no  thought  of 
railroads  stopping  or  mines  closing  down,  so  that  large  storage 
facilities  have  not  been  provided,  and,  indeed,  we  would  rebel  at  pay- 
ing for  our  coal  the  added  cost  of  caring  for  it  outside  its  native 
warehouse.  We  have  not  thought  in  terms  of  apprehension,  but,  as 
always,  in  the  calm  certainty  that  the  stream  of  supply  would  flow 
without  ceasing.  In  some  way  .there  would  be  coal  into  which  we 
could  drive  our  shovels  when  the  need  was  felt. 

No  wonder,  therefore,  that  we  are  rudely  disturbed  when  one  link 
in  the  carrier  chain  from  coal-in-place  to  coal-in-the-furnace  breaks. 
It  simply  is  one  of  those  things  which  doesn't  happen.  And  not 
having  happened  sufficiently  often  to  give  us  fear,  we  have  had  no 
thought  that  we  should  provide  against  it.  It  is  a  most  heterodox 
thing  to  say,  but  we  may  find  that  a  bit  more  foresight  on  the  part 
of  the  public  would  certainly  have  made  less  sudden  the  present 
crisis.  Let  us  look,  for  instance,  into  the  matter  of  the  coal  miners' 
year  and  see  if  it  is  not  fixed  in  some  degree  by  the  habit  of  the 
public  in  its  purchasing. 

THE  MINERS'  YEAR. 

The  record  year,  1918,  with  everything  to  stimulate  production  had 
an  average  of  only  249  working  days  for  the  bituminous  mines  of  the 
country.  This  average  of  the  country  included  a  minimum  among 
the  principal  coal-producing  States  of  204  days  for  Arkansas  and  a 
maximum  of  301  for  New  Mexico.  In  such  a  State  as  Ohio  the  aver- 
age working  year  is  under  200  days.  In  1917  the  miners  of  New 
Mexico  reached  an  average  of  321  days,  and  in  the  largest  field,  the 
Raton  field,  it  was  actually  336 — probably  the  record  for  steady  oper- 
ation. 

This  short  year  in  coal-mine  operation  is  due  in  part  to  seasonal 
fluctuation  in  demand.  The  mines  averaged  only  24  hours  a  week 
during  the  spring  months.  The  weekly  report  of  that  date  showed 
that  80  per  cent  of  the  lost  time  was  due  to  "  no  market "  and  only  15 
per  cent  to  "  labor  shortage,"  while  "  car  shortage  "  was  a  negligible 
factor.  In  contrast  with  this  should  be  taken  the  last  week  before  the 
strike,  when  the  average  hours  operated  were  39  and  "  no  market " 
was  a  negligible  item  in  lost  time,  while  "  car  shortage  "  was  by  far 


6  CONSERVATION   THROUGH    ENGINEERING. 

the  largest  item.  It  follows  that  the  short  year  is  a  source  of  loss  to 
both  operator  and  mine  worker  and  is  a  tax  on  the  consumer.1 

With  substantially  the  same  number  of  mines  and  miners  working 
this  year  as  last,  the  accumulative  production  for  the  first  10  months 
of  this  year  is  100,000,000  tons  less  than  that  mined  in  the  same 
period  last  year.  This  25  per  cent  loss  in  output  means  that  both 
plant  and  labor  have  been  less  productive,  and,  in  terms  of  capital 
and  labor,  coal  cost  the  Nation  more  this  year  than  last.  For  in  the 
long  run  both  capital  and  labor  require  a  living  wage. 

The  public  must  accept  responsibility  for  the  coal  industry  and 
pay  for  carrying  it  on  the  year  round.  Mine  operators  and  mine 
workers  of  whatever  mines  are  necessary  to  meet  the  needs  of  the 
country  must  be  paid  for  a  year's  work.  The  shorter  the  working 
year  the  less  coal  is  mined  per  man  and  per  dollar  invested  in  plant, 
and  eventually  the  higher  priced  must  be  the  coal.  It  is  obvious  that 
the  264  short  tons  of  coal  mined  by  the  average  British  miner  last 
year  could  not  be  as  cheap  per  ton  as  the  942  tons  mined  by  the 
average  American  mine  worker,  backed  up  as  he  was  with  more 
efficient  plant.  (A  proud  contrast!) 

It  would  clearly  appear  that  the  coal  business  may  be  stabilized, 
not  wholly,  but  in  a  very  large  measure,  in  some  of  the  western  fields,2 
if  the  public  does  not  regard  its  supply  of  coal  as  it  does  its  supply 
of  domestic  water,  which  requires  only  that  the  faucet  shall  be  opened 
to  bring  forth  a  gushing  supply.  Coal  does  not  have  pressure  behind 
it  which  forces  it  out  of  the  mine  and  into  the  coal  yard.  It  rather 
must  be  drawn  out  by  the  suction  of  demand.  And  herein  the  public 
must  play  its  part  by  keeping  that  demand  as  steady  and  uniform  as 
possible. 

1  In  spite  of  the  strike  order,  effective  the  last  day  of  the  week,  the  production  of 
soft  coal  during  the  seven  days  Oct.  26-Nov.  1  was  greater  than  in  any  week  this  year 
save  one.  The  exception  was  the  preceding  week,  that  of  Oct.  25,  which  full  reports 
now  confirm  as  the  record  in  the  history  of  coal  mining  in  the  United  States.  The 
total  production  during  the  week  ended  Nov.  1  (including  lignite  and  coal  made  into 
coke)  Is  estimated  at  12,142,000  net  tons,  an  average  per  working  day  of  2,024,000  tons. 

Indeed  had  it  not  been  for  the  strike,  curtailing  the  output  of  Saturday,  the  week  of 
Nov.  1  would  have  far  outstripped  its  predecessor.  The  extraordinary  efforts  made  by 
the  railroads  to.  provide  cars  bore  fruit  in  a  rate  of  production  during  the  first  five 
days  of  the  week  which,  if  maintained  for  the  304  working  days  of  full-time  year,  would 
yield  715,000,000  tons  of  coal.  It  is  worth  noting  that  this  figure  is  almost  identical 
with  the  700,000,000  tons  accepted  early  in  1918  by  the  Geological  Survey  and  the 
Railroad  Administration  as  representing  the  country's  annual  capacity.  During  these 
five  days,  therefore,  the  soft-coal  mines  were  working  close  to  actual  capacity.  There 
can  be  little  doubt  that  the  output  on  Monday,  Oct.  27,  was  the  largest  ever  attained 
in  a  single  day.  (U.  8.  Geol.  Survey  Bull.) 

a  It  is  the  western  and  southern  fields  that  are  most  affected  by  the  seasonal  demand. 
As  a  typical  example,  Illinois  may  be  cited,  with  18  per  cent  of  the  year's  production 
in  25  per  cent  of  the  time,  April,  May,  and  June,  in  1915,  and  15  per  cent  in  1916. 
Retail  dealers  received  27  per  cent  of  the  coal  from  Illinois  in  the  period  from  August, 
1918,  to  February,  1919,  compared  with  4  per  cent  from  the  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  field. 


CONSERVATION    THROUGH    ENGINEERING.  7 

HAVE    WE    TOO    MANY    MINES    AND    MINERS? 

The  problem  of  the  miner  and  his  industry  may  be  stated  in  an- 
other way.  We  consume  all  the  coal  we  produce.  We  produce  it 
with  labor  that  upon  social  and  economic  grounds  works  as  a  rule 
too  few  days  in  the  year.  We  therefore  must  have  a  longer  miners' 
year  and  fewer  miners  or  a  longer  miners'  year  and  additional 
markets.  One  or  the  other  is  inevitable  unless  we  are  to  carry  on 
the  industry  as  a  whole  as  an  emergency  industry,  holding  men 
ready  for  work  when  they  are  not  needed  in  order  that  they  may 
be  ready  for  duty  when  the  need  arises.  There  are  too  many  mines 
to  keep  all  the  miners  employed  all  of  the  time  or  to  give  them  a 
reasonable  year's  work.  This  conclusion  is  based  on  the  assumption 
that  we  now  produce  only  enough  coal  from  all  the  mines  to  meet 
the  country's  demand,  which  is  the  fact.  More  coal  produced  would 
not  sell  more  coal,  but  more  coal  demanded  would  result  in  greater 
coal  production.  With  the  full  demand  met  by  men  working  two- 
thirds  or  less  of  the  time  in  the  year  there  can  not  be  a  longer  year 
given  to  all  the  miners  without  more  demand  for  coal.  This  seems 
to  be  manifest.  Therefore  the  miners  must  remain  working  but 
part  time  as  now,  or  fewer  miners  must  work  more  days,  or  market 
must  be  found  for  more  coal  and  thus  all  the  miners  given  a  longer 
year.  If  we  worked  all  of  our  miners  in  all  of  our  mines  a  reason- 
able year,  we  would  have  a  great  overproduction.  And  to  have 
all  our  mines  work  a  longer  period  means  that  we  must  find  some 
place  in  which  to  sell  more  coal,  either  at  home  or  abroad. 

Why  have  we  so  many  mines  working  so  many  miners?  There 
can  be  no  one- word  reply  to  this  question.  It  penetrates  into  almost 
every  social  and  economic  condition  of  the  country — the  initiative 
of  capital,  the  size  of  the  country,  the  pride  of  localities,  the  intense 
competition  between  railroads,  their  inability  to  furnish  cars  when 
needed,  the  manner  in  which  cars  are  apportioned  between  mines, 
the  manner  in  which  the  railroads  are  operated  so  that  movement  is 
slow  and  equipment  is  short,  and  this  runs  into  the  need  for  new 
facilities,  such  as  more  yards,  more  tracks,  more  equipment,  which 
brings  us  into  the  need  for  more  capital  and  so  on  and  on. 

We  have  none  too  many  mines  or  too  many  miners  to  supply  our 
need  if  the  mines  are  operated  as  at  present.  But  we  have  too  many 
to  fill  that  need  if  they  are  operated  on  a  basis  nearer  to  100  per  cent 
of  possible  production. 

THE    LONG    VIEW. 


\ 


Passing  from  the  labor  phase  of  the  coal  situation  to  the  larger 
aspect  of  our  coal  supply  as  related  to  the  whole  problem  of  the 
economical  production  of  light,  heat,  and  power,  which  Sir  William 


8  CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING. 

Crookes  has  characterized  as  "  first  among  the  immediate  practical 
problems  of  science,"  we  find  ourselves  both  rich  and  wasteful,  fol- 
lowing the  primrose  path,  heedless  of  the  morrow  and  not  vet  con- 
scious that  the  morrow  is  to  be  a  day  of  battle. 

In  the  first  place  we  treat  coal  as  if  it  were  a  thing  which  was 
exclusively  for  home  use,  a  nonexportable  commodity  which  must 
be  used  "  on  the  farm,"  whereas  it  should  be  treated  with  profound 
respect,  because  we  know  from  Paris  that  sacred  treaties  and  na- 
tional boundaries  turn  on  its  presence.  The  world  wants  our  coal, 
envies  us  for  having  it,  fears  us  because  of  it.  It  is  not  only  useful 
to  us,  but  it  has  a  cash  value  in  the  markets  of  the  world.  There- 
fore it  should  be  saved. 

In  the  next  place  we  treat  coal  as  if  it  were  all  alike,  not  selected 
by  nature  for  specific  uses;  whereas  we  should  choose  our  coal  with 
as  scientific  a  judgment  as  we  choose  our  reading  glasses.  There  is 
coal  for  coke  and  coal  for  furnaces  and  coal  for  house  use  and  coal 
adapted  for  one  kind  of  boiler  and  a  different  kind  of  coal  for  a 
different  kind  of  boiler.  Therefore  we  should  discriminate  in  coal. 

And  again  we  have  shown  little  willingness  to  dignify  coal  by 
seeking  to  draw  out  by  improved  mechanical  processes  all  the  stored 
content  of  heat  in  this  lump  of  carbon.  Instead  we  content  ourselves 
by  giving  it  a  mere  pauper  touch,  driving  off  the  greater  volume  of 
its  value  into  the  air.  This  is  a  task  for  the  mechanical  engineer. 

Then,  too,  there  is  the  problem  of  using  coal  in  the  form  of  steam 
or-  in  the  more  exalted  form  of  electric  current.  The  lifting,  bob- 
bing lid  of  James  Watt's  teakettle  did  not  speak  the  last  word  in 
power.  We  are  only  beginning  to  know  how  we  may  move  on  from 
one  form  of  motive  power  to  another.  The  wastefulness  of  steam 
power  as  contrasted  with  electric  power  is  a  real  challenging  prob- 
lem in  conservation  by  itself. 

And  then  we  naturally  ask,  Why  this  long  haul  over  mountains 
and  through  tunnels  and  across  bridges  and  along  streets  and  into 
houses,  by  railroad,  truck,  and  on  the  backs  of  men,  when  at  the 
very  pit  mouth,  or  within  the  mine  itself,  this  same  coal  might  be 
transformed  into  electricity  and  by  wire  served  into  factories  and 
homes  100,  200,  300  miles  from  the  mine?  Why  burden  our  con- 
gested railroads  with  this  traffic?  Why  strew  our  streets  with  this 
dirt?  This  may  be  a  practicable  thing,  a  wise  thing;  it  deserves 
study  if  coal  is  worth  conserving. 

Are  there  no  substitutes  for  coal  which  we  can  use  and  can  not 
export?  This  question  immediately  raises  the  water-power  possi- 
bilities of  our  land,  of  which  only  the  most  superficial  study  has 
been  made.  Sell  coal  and  use  electricity  would  appear  a  thrifty 
policy. 


CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING.  9 

As  petroleum  is  being  used  as  a  substitute  for  coal — and  inasmuch 
as  the  whole  problem  of  fuel  supply  is  one — we  are  ultimately  com- 
pelled to  an  investigation  of  the  ability  of  our  petroleum  supply  to 
meet  its  present  drain  and  to  meet  the  expansion  in  its  use,  which  is 
the  most  surprising  development  of  our  day  in  the  study  of  power 
creation. 

This  spells  a  program  of  development  and  conservation  which 
should  challenge  the  ambitions  of  this  Nation,  and  on  a  few  of  its 
features  perhaps  a  few  further  words  would  be  justified. 

SAVING  COAL. 

The  two  ways  by  which  coal  in  greatest  volume  can  be  saved  are 
the  discovery  of  the  method  by  which  more  power  can  be  taken  from 
the  ton  and  the  discovery  of  what  kind  of  coal  is  best  fitted  for  any 
particular  use. 

It  has  been  everyone's  business  to  save  coal,  hence The  rail- 
roads have  experimented  with  some  success.  They  get  perhaps  10  per 
cent  of  the  heat  energy  from  a  ton  shoveled  beneath  the  locomotive 
boiler,  10  per  cent  of  the  total  in  the  ton.  They  use  one-quarter  of 
all  the  coal  mined.  Next  to  labor  this  is  the  greatest  expense  which 
our  railroads  have.  This  shows  how  great  the  problem  is  to  them. 
Some  have  adopted  a  system  of  paying  a  bonus  for  the  greatest  dis- 
tance made  on  a  given  quantity  of  a  given  coal.  But  this  laudable 
effort  has  not  met  with- the  cooperation  that  would  be  expected  from 
the  firemen,  for  reasons  that  go  far  afield.  Industries,  especially  those 
which  generate  electric  power,  have  made  similar  effort  to  gain  from 
their  fuel  its  greatest  potentiality,  and  with  varying  success.  We 
can  overlook  the  stoking  of  the  domestic  furnace  as  a  national  con- 
cern, for  the  amount  of  coal  used  in  this  way  amounts  to  not  more 
than  17  per  cent  of  the  national  coal  bill,  and  this  whole  charge 
could  be  saved,  it  is  estimated,  by  giving  care  to  the  75  per  cent  of 
our  coal  which  is  burned  under  boilers  to  make  steam.  Here  there  is 
a  maximum  figure  of  13  per  cent  of  the  energy  of  the  coal  put  into 
harness,  and  the  average  is  less  than  10  per  cent,  even  in  the  larger 
plants. 

In  one  establishment  visited  by  the  fuel  engineers  of  this  depart- 
ment during  the  war  a  preventable  waste  of  40,000  tons  a  year  was 
discovered.  By  changes  in  the  admission  of  air  to  the  furnaces  and 
in  the  "  baffling  "  of  the  boilers  the  engineers  of  the  Bureau  of  Mines 
are  confident  that  they  have  been  able  to  increase  the  economy  of 
coal  in  the  ships  of  the  Emergency  Fleet  Corporation  by  16  per  cent, 
making  6  pounds  of  coal  do  the  work  of  7.  If  such  a  percentage 
of  economy  could  be  generally  effected  it  would  mean  the  saving 
of  as  much  coal  as  France  and  Italy  together  will  need  in  this  year 
of  their  greatest  distress. 


10  CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING. 

COAL   AND   COAL. 

The  Government  should  sample  and  certify  coal.  We  do  this  as 
to  \wheat  and  meat;  it  is  just  as  necessary  to  avoid  injustice  in  the 
case  of  coal,  and  it  is  thoroughly  practicable.  The  public  should 
know  the  kind  of  coal  it  is  bu}Ting,  because  it  should  buy  the  coal 
>  it  needs.  There  need  be  no  prohibition  against  the  mining  or  sell- 
1-^  ing  of  any  coal,1  but  coal  should  sell  in  terms  of  its  capacity  to  de- 
liver heat.  Some  coal  that  is  only  a  pint  bottle  is  selling  as  a  quart 
bottle.  And  the  quart  is  hurt  by  the  competition  of  the  pint.  A  bill 
to  effect  such  fuel  inspection  has  been  drafted  and  will  be  presented  to 
Congress.  It  is  not  a  bill  commanding  anything,  but  rather  gives  to 
those  who  are  willing  an  opportunity  to  have  their  product  inspected 
and  attested  and  thus  acquire  merit  in  the  eye  of  the  world  as  against 
those  who  are  not  willing  to  subject  their  coal  to  the  official  test  tube. 
Coal  is  coal  in  the  sense  of  the  classic  traffic  classification.  Coal  is, 
however,  not  always  coal,  nor  is  it  altogether  coal  when  put  to  the 
pragmatic  test  of  the  furnace.  If  such  a  bilkwerS  passed  it  would 
promote  the  interests  of  those  who  schedule  ^heir  price  upon  the 
merit  of  their  goods  and  make  against  the  hauling  of  slate  and  dirt, 
its  storage  and  handling  under  an  assumed  name.  The  plan  is  not 
to  punish  the  malefactor  who  attempts  to  impose  upon  the  public  a 
slender  number  of  thermal  units  as  a  ton  of  "coal,  but  rather  to  give 
to  ever  man  an  opportunity  to  advertise  the  number  of  such  units 

1  In  every  trainload  of  coal  hauled  from  the  mines  to  our  coal  bins,  1  carload  out  of 
every  5  is  going  nowhere.  In  a  train  of  40  cars,  the  last  8  are  dead  load  that  might 
better  have  been  left  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth.  No  less  an  authority  than  Martin  A. 
Rooney  states  :  "  Every  fifth  shovel  full  of  coal  that  the  average  fireman  throws  into 
his  furnace  serves  no  more  useful  purpose  than  to  decorate  the  atmosphere  with  a  long 
black  stream  of  precious  soot.  At  best  one-fifth  of  all  our  coal  is  wasted." 

The  first  requisite  toward  effecting  fuel  economy  is  to  secure  cooperation  between 
owners,  managers,  and  the  men  who  fire  the  coal.  Mechanical  devices  to  increase  effi- 
ciency in  the  use  of  coal  can  not  produce  satisfactory  results  unless  the  operators  who 
handle  them  are  impressed  with  the  importance  of  their  duties. 

.It  is  not  essential  for  the  plant  manager  to  be  a  fuel  expert,  but  he  should  be  familiar 
with  the  instruments  that  give  a  check  on  the  daily  operations.  It  is  a  mistake  not  to 
provide  proper  instruments,  for  they  guide  the  firemen  and  show  the  management  what 
has  taken  place  daily.  Instruments  provided  for  the  boiler  room  manifest  the  interest 
taken  by  the  management  toward  conserving  fuel.  It  indicates  cooperation  and  encour- 
ages the  firemen  to  work  harder  to  increase  the  efficiency. 

A  second  factor  effecting  fuel  economy  is  the  selection  of  fuel  for  the  particular  plant. 
It  is  not  expected  of  a  plant  manager  that  he  should  be  thoroughly  informed  as  to  the 
character  of  all  fuels;  but  he  can  enlist  the  services  of  a  man  who  is  thoroughly  trained 
In  this  field.  The  Bureau  of  Mines  has  compiled  valuable  information  on  the  character 
and  analyses  of  coal  from  almost  every  field  in  the  United  States.  Information  concern- 
Ing  the  character  and  chemical  constituents  of  the  coal,  together  with  knowledge  pertain- 
ing to  the  equipment  of  the  plant,  makes  it  possible  to  select  a  fuel  adapted  to  the 
equipment,  thereby  insuring  better  combustion.  Hundreds  of  boiler  plants  operate  at  no 
greater  than  60  per  cent  efficiency,  and  it  would  be  a  comparatively  simple  matter  to 
bring  them  up  to  70  per  cent  efficiency.  The  saving  in  tonnage  would  be  more  than  the 
combined  yearly  coal-carrying  capacity  of  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  and  the  Southern  Railway 
systems.  The  direct  saving  to  our  industries  at  $5  per  ton  would  amount  to  $200,000,000 
worth  of  coal  per  year. 


CONSERVATION"  THROUGH   ENGINEERING.  11 

which  his  particular  article  contains,  thus  enabling  the  injured  pub- 
lic to  strike  against  an  unfair  mine. 

Furthermore  we  are  to  become  great  exporters  of  coal,  unless  all 
signs  fail,  and  such  certification  should  be  required  as  to  every  ton 
sent  abroad. 

EXPANSION  ABROAD. 

Tt  has  been  said  that  we  have  too  many  mines  in  operation,  as  we 
appear  to  have  too  many  miners,  if  we  are  to  maintain  only  our 
present  output.  Rapid  expansion  in  the  development  of  industry  in 
general  may  justify  the  existence  of  such  mines  and  so  large  a  corps 
of  workers,  even  with  an  adequate  car  supply  and  more  abundant 
local  storage  facilities,  which  are  greatly  needed  in  almost  all  places, 
and  a  more  even  demand.  If,  however,  this  should  not  be  so,  there 
is  a  foreign  demand  for  the  best  of  our  bituminous  coals,  which  at 
present  we  are  altogether  unable  to  meet  for  lack  of  credits  on  the 
part  of  those  who  wish  the  coal,  and  lack  of  ships  to  carry  it.  Eng- 
land's annual  production  has  fallen  100,000,000  tons,  according  to 
Mr.  Hoover,  and  the  Eur€{>ean  demand  next  year  will  be  more  than 
150,000,000  tons  above  her  production.  Whatever  the  world  need,  it 
can  not  be  supplied.  It  is  too  large  for  any  possible  supply  by  ship, 
even  if  all  necessary  financial  arrangements  could  be  made,  either 
by  loan  or  credit.  Europe,  indeed,  svill  sadly  learn  through  this  win- 
ter how  little  coal  she  can  live  on  tod  how  more  than  perilous  is  the 
state  of  a  people  who  are  short  of  power,  light,  and  heat. 

As  this  country  prior  to  the  war  sold  abroad  no  more  than  4,500,- 
000  tons  as  against  England's  77,000,000,  it  is  quite  manifest  that 
here  will  be  a  new  field  for  American  enterprise,  the  enterprise 
being  needed  not  for  the  winning  of  markets  as  much  as  for  find- 
ing ways  of  dealing  with  the  larger  phases  of  a  heavy  overseas 
trade  with  those  who  are  without  immediate  resources. 

SAVING    COAL   BY    SAVING    ELECTRICITY. 

It  is  three  years  since  Congress  was  urged  that  we  should  be  em- 
powered to  make  a  study  of  the  power  possibilities  of  the  congested 
industrial  part  of  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  with  a  view  to  developing 
not  only  the  fact  that  there  could  be  effected  a  great  saving  in  power 
and  a  much  larger  actual  use  secured  out  of  that  now  produced, 
but  also  that  new  supplies  could  be  obtained  both  from  running 
water  and  from  the  conversion  of  coal  at  the  mines  instead  of  after 
a  long  rail  haul.  A  stream  of  power  paralleling  the  Atlantic  from 
Richmond  to  Boston,  a  main  channel  into  which  run  many  minor 
feeding  streams  and  from  which  diverge  an  infinite  number  of 
small  delivering  lines — the  whole  an  interlocking  system  that  would 


12  CONSERVATION   THROUGH  ENGINEERING. 

take  from  the  coal  mine  and  the  railroad  a  part  of  their  present 
burden  and  insure  the  operation  of  street  lights,  street  cars,  elevators, 
and  essential  industries  in  the  face  of  railroad  delinquencies — this 
is  the  dream  of  our  engineers,  and  a  very  possible  dream  it  has 
seemed  to  me;  of  such  value,  indeed,  that  we  might  well  spend  a 
few  thousand  dollars  in  studying  it,  not  with  the  thought  that  the 
Government  would  construct  or  operate  even  the  trunk  line,  but 
that  it  might  so  attract  the  attention  of  the  engineering  and  financial 
world  as  to  make  it  a  reality. 

To  tie  together  the  separated  power  plants  of  10  States  so  that 
one  can  give  aid  to  the  other,  so  that  one  can  take  the  place  of  the 
other,  so  that  all  may  join  their  power  for  good  in  any  great  drive 
that  may  be  projected — this  would  be  the  prime  purpose  of  the  plan ; 
and  from  this  would,  evolve  the  development  of  the  most  practicable 
method  of  supplying  this  vast  interdependent  system  with  more 
power — perhaps  from  the  conversion  of  coal,  as  it  drops  from  the 
very  tipple,  using  the  mine  as  one  might  use  a  waterfall,  or  by  the 
development  of  great  hydroelectric  plants  on  the  many  streams  from 
the  Androscoggin  to  the  James. 

WHITE  COAL  AND  BLACK. 

This  would  be  a  plan  for  the  wedding  of  the  stream  and  the  mine, 
the  white  coal  with  the  black.  "  White  coal  "  they  call  it  in  imagina- 
tive France,  this  tumbling  water  which  is  converted  into  so  many 
forms ;  and  a  much  cleaner,  handier  kind  of  coal  it  is  than  its  black 
brother.  And  cheaper,  for  the  water  goes  on  to  return  again  and 
fall  once  more  and  forever  into  the  pockets  of  the  turbine  which 
whirls  the  dynamo  and  so  gathers  or  releases  that  mystery  which 
we  name  but  never  define.  Farsighted,  purposeful  Germany  fought 
four  and  a  half  years  upon  the  strength  of  great  power  plants  run 
by  the  snows  of  the  Alps.  She  did  not  rely  on  these  alone  for  power, 
nor  were  they  her  main  reliance,  but  they  gave  her  a  lasting  power 
which  otherwise  she  would  not  have  had.  And  we  may  expect  her  to 
improve  on  that  war-time  experience  for  the  conduct  of  the  hard 
fight  she  is  to  make  in  the  industrial  field.  France  saved  enough 
territory  from  the  invader  to  permit  her  to  make  new  adventures 
into  this  field  and  so  to  some  degree  offset  the  coaj  loss  of  Lens. 
Italy  found  that  she  had  still  left  unused  opportunities  for  hydro- 
electric development  sufficient  with  the  coal  she  could  secure  from 
England  and  America  to  see  her  through  the  war.  And  with  coal 
conditions  as  they  are  in  Europe  we  may  expect  a  still  greater  push 
to  make  use  of  water  power  to  turn  the  industrial  wheels  of  peace. 
It  must  be  so  likewise  here. 

And  it  is  likely  that  the  long-pending  power  bill  which  will  make 
available  the  dam  and  reservoir  sites  on  withdrawn  public  lands 


CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING.  13 

and  make  feasible  the  financing  of  many  projects  on  both  navigable 
and  unnavigable  streams  will  soon  have  become  law.  We  shall 
then  have  an  opportunity  that  never  before  has  been  given  us  to 
develop  the  hydroelectric  possibilities  of  the  country.  And  this 
raises  the  question  as  to  their  extent. 

The  theoretical  maximum  quantity  of  hydroelectric  power  that 
can  be  produced  in  the  United  States  has  recently  been  estimated  by 
Dr.  Steinmetz,  who  calculates  that  if  every  stream  could  be  fully 
utilized  throughout  its  length  at  all  seasons,  the  power  obtained 
would  be  230,000,000  kilowatts  (320,000,000  horsepower).  It  is 
clear  that  only  a  fraction  of  this  absolute  maximum  can  ever  be  made 
available.  The  Geological  Survey  estimates  that  the  water  power  in 
this  country  that  is  available  for  ultimate  development  amounts  to 
54,000,000  continuous  horsepower. 

The  census  of  1912  showed  that  the  country's  developed  water 
power  was  4,870,000  horsepower,  about  9  per  cent  of  the  maximum 
power  available  for  economic  development  and  less  than  2  per  cent 
of  the  total  that  may  be  supplied  by  the  streams  as  estimated  by 
Dr.  Steinmetz.  According  to  the  census,  stationary  prime  movers 
representing  a  capacity  of  more  than  30,000,000  horsepower,  fur- 
nished by  water,  steam,  and  gas,  were  in  operation  in  the  United 
States  in  1912.  (This  amount  does  not,  of  course,  include  power 
generated  by  locomotives,  marine  engines,  automobiles,  and  similar 
mobile  apparatus.)  The  average  power  furnished  by  these  station- 
ary prime  movers  was  probably  not  more  than  20  per  cent  of  their 
installed  capacity,  so  that  the  power  produced  in  1912  was  equivalent 
to  probably  not  more  than  6,000,000  continuous  horsepower. 

As  the  estimated  available  water  power  given  above  represents 
continuous  power  the  country  evidently  possesses  much  more  water 
power  than  it  now  requires,  so  that  there  would  be  an  ample  surplus 
for  many  years  if  the  power  were  so  distributed  geographically 
that  it  could  be  economically  supplied  to  the  industries  that  need  it. 
But  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  water-power  resources  of  the  country 
are  by  no  means  evenly  distributed.  Over  TO  per  cent  of  the  avail- 
able water  power  is  west  of  the  Mississippi,  whereas  .over  TO  per 
cent  of  the  total  horsepower  now  installed  in  prime  movers  is  east 
of  the  river.  Therefore  unless  the  East  is  to  lose  its  industrial 
supremacy  it  must  press  and  press  hard  for  the  development  of  all 
water-power  possibilities ! 

THE   AGE   OF   PETROLEUM. 

For  a  full  century  now  we  have  been  passing  through  different 
phases  of  industrial  and  commercial  life  which  have  been  character- 
ized by  some  form  of  power.    First  the  age  of  steam,  and  then  the 
age  of  electricity.     We  have  passed  out  of  neither  and  yet  we  have 
155084°— 19 2 


14  CONSERVATION   THROUGH    ENGINEERING. 

come  into  another  age — that  of  petroleum.  As  a  lubricant,  it  has 
become  of  such  universal  use  that  it  has  been  called  the  barometer  of 
industry,  and  no  doubt  -after  it  has  ceased  to  be  a  popular  illuminant 
or  a  source  of  power  it  will  live  invaluable  as  the  thing  which  lets 
the  wheels  go  round.  Its  greatest  popularity  now  arises  out  of  its 
use  in  the  internal-combustion  engine,  and  of  the  making  of  these 
there  is  no  end.  It  draws  railroad  trains  and  drives  street  cars. 
It  pumps  water,  lifts  heavy  loads,  has  taken  the  place  of  millions 
of  horses,  and  in  20  years  has  become  a  farming,  industrial,  business, 
and  social  necessity.  The  naval  and  the  merchant  ships  of  this  coun- 
try and  of  England  are  fitted  and  being  fitted  to  use  it  either  under 
steam  boilers  as  fuel  or  directly  in  the  Diesel  engine.  The  airplane 
has  been  made  possible  by  it.  It  propels  that  modern  juggernaut, 
the  tank.  In  the  air  it  has  no  rival,  while  on  land  and  sea  it  threat- 
ens the  supremacy  of  its  rivals  whenever  it  appears.  There  has 
been  no  such  magician  since  the  day  of  Aladdin  as  this  drop  of 
mineral  oil.  Medicines  and  dyes  and  high  explosives  are  distilled 
from  it.  No  one  knows  whence  it  cometh  or  whither  it  goeth.  Men 
search  for  it  with  the  passion  of  the  early  Argonauts,  and  the  prom- 
ise now  is  that  nations  will  yet  fight  to  gain  the  fitful  bed  in  which 
it  lies. 

In  Persia  and  in  Palestine,  in  Java  and  in  China,  in  southern 
Russia  and  in  Rumania  we  know  that  petroleum  is,  for  it  has  been 
found  there.  How  great  these  fields  or  others  in  Europe,  Asia,  or 
Africa  may  be  no  one  would  dare  to  say.  As  yet,  however,  the  petro- 
leum of  the  world  has  come  from  this  hemisphere. 

The  "oil  spring"  which  George  Washington  found  in  western 
Virginia  and  by  his  last  will  called  to  the  especial  consideration  of 
his  trustees  was  the  promise  of  a  continental  well  which  last  year 
yielded  356,000,000  barrels.  Each  year  has  seen  the  prophecy  un- 
fulfilled that  the  peak  of  the  possible  yield  had  been  reached. 

From  the  mountains  of  western  Pennsylvania  into  the  very  ocean 
bed  of  the  Pacific  and  even  beyond  and  into  the  broken  strata  of  up- 
turned Alaska,  the  oil  prespector  bored  with  his  sharp  tooth  of  steel 
and  found  oil.  Hardly  has  one  field  fallen  into  a  decline  when  an- 
other has  come  rushing  into  service.  Only  three  years  ago  and  all 
hoTpes  were  centered  in  Oklahoma,  and  then  came  Kansas,  and  then 
the  turn  went  south  again  to  Texas,  and  now  it  looks  toward  Louisi- 
ana. Geologists  have  estimated  and  estimated,  and  they  do  not  differ 
widely,  for  few  give  more  than  thirty  years  of  life  to  the  petroleum 
sands  of  this  country  if  the  present  yield  is  insisted  upon.  And  yet 
there  is  so  much  of  mystery  in  the  hiding  of  this  strange  subterranean 
liquid  that  honest  men  will  not  say  but  that  it  will  become  a  perma- 
nent factor  in  the  world  of  light,  heat,  and  power.  If  this  is  not  so 


CONSERVATION   THROUGH  ENGINEERING.  15 

we  are  a  fatuous  people,  for  with  every  fifth  man  in  the  country  the 
owner  of  an  automobile  and  the  expenditure  of  hundreds  of  millions 
of  dollars  for  roads  fit  only  for  their  use,  and  with  ships  by  the  hun- 
dred specially  constructed  to  burn  oil,  we  have  surely  given  a  large 
fortune  in  pledge  of  our  faith  that  our  pools  of  petroleum  will  not 
soon  be  drained  dry,  or  that  others  elsewhere  will  come  to  our  help. 

In  1908  the  country's  production  of  oil  was  178,500,000  barrels, 
and  there  was  a  surplus  above  consumption  of  more  than  20,000,000 
barrels  available  to  go  into  storage.  In  1918,  10  years  later,  the 
oil  wells  of  the  United  States  yielded  356,000,000  barrels— nearly 
twice  the  yield  of  1908 — but  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  increased 
consumption  more  than  24,000,000  barrels  had  to  be  drawn  from 
storage.  The  annual  fuel-oil  consumption  of  the  railroads  alone 'has 
increased  from  16|  to  36  J  million  barrels;  the  annual  gasoline  pro-| 
duction  from  540,000,000  gallons  in  1909  to  3,500,000,000  gallons  in* 
1918.  This  reference  to  the  record  of  the  past  may  be  taken  not  only 
as  justifying  the  earlier  appeal  for  Federal  action,  but  as  warrant- 
ing deliberate  attention  to  the  oil  problem  of  to-day. 

Fuel  oil,  gasoline,  lubricating  oil — for  these  three  essentials  are 
there  no  practical  substitutes  or  other  adequate  sources  ?  The  obvious 
answer  is  in  terms  of  cost ;  the  real  answer  is  in  terms  of  man  power. 
Whether  on  land  or  sea,  fuel  oil  is  preferred  to  coal  because  it  re- 
quires fewer  firemen,  and  back  of  that,  in  the  man  power  required 
in  its  mining,  preparation,  and  transportation  the  advantage  on 
the  side  of  oil  is  even  greater.  So,  too,  the  substitute  for  gasoline  in 
internal-combustion  engines,  whether  alcohol  or  benzol,  means  higher 
cost  and  larger  expenditure  of  labor  in  its  production. 

There  are  large  bodies  of  public  land  now  withdrawn,  which,  under 
the  new  leasing  bill  which  seems  so  near  to  final  passage  after  seven 
years  of  struggle  and  baffled  hope,  will  in  all  likelihood  make  a  fur- 
ther rich  contribution  to  the  American  supply. 

OIL  SHALE. 

And  beyond  these  in  point  of  time  lie  the  vast  deposits  of  oil  shale 
which  by  a  comparatively  cheap  refining  process  can  be  made  to 
yield  vastly  more  oil  than  has  yet  been  found  in  pools  or  sands.  The 
value  of  this  oil  shale  will  depend  upon  the  cheapness  of  its  reduction, 
and  this  must  be  greatly  lessened  by  the  value  of  by-products  before 
it  can  compete  with  coal  or  the  oil  from  wells.  There  is  every  reason 
to  believe,  however,  that  some  day  the  production  of  oil  from  shale 
will  be  a  great  and  a  permanent  industry.  And  the  country  could 
make  no  better  immediate  investment  than  to  give  a  large  appro- 
priation for  the  development  of  an  economical  shale-reducing  plant. 


16  CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING. 

So  conservative  an  authority  as  the  Geological  Survey  estimates 
that  the  oil  shales  of  the  Western  States  alone  contain  many  times 
over  the  quantity  of  oil  that  will  be  recovered  from  our  oil  wells. 
The  retorting  of  oil  from  oil  shale  has  been  a  commercial  industry 
for  many  years  in  Scotland  and  France;  in  fact,  oil  was  obtained 
from  oil  shale  here  in  the  United  States  before  the  first  oil  well  was 
drilled.  The  industry  is  in  process  of  redevelopment  to-day  and  if 
successful  will  assure  us  of  a  future  supply,  but  at  the  best  it  will 
take  years  of  time  and  a  vast  investment  of  capital  to  build  up  the 
industry  to  such  a  point  that  it  can  supply  any  considerable  propor- 
tion of  our  needs.  It  is  imperative,  however,  that  the  development 
of  this  latent  resource  be  furthered  and  brought  to  a  state  of  com- 
mercial development  as  soon  as  possible. 

SAVE  OIL. 

Yet  with  all  the  optimism  that  can  be  justified  I  would  urge  a 
policy  of  saving  as  to  petroleum  that  should  be  rigid  in  the  extreme. 
If  we  are  to  long  enjoy  the  benefits  of  a  petroleum  age,  which  we 
must  frankly  admit  fits  into  the  comfort-loving  and  the  speed-loving 
side  of  the  American  nature,  we  must  save  this  oil. 

We  must  save  it  before  it  leaves  the  well ;  keep  it  from  being  lost ; 
keep  it  from  being  flooded  out,  driven  away  by  water.  Through 
the  cementing  of  wells  in  the  Gushing  field,  Oklahoma,  the  daily  vol- 
ume of  water  lifted  from  the  wells  was  decreased  from  7,520  barrels 
to  628  barrels,  while  the  daily  volume  of  oil  produced  was  increased 
from  412  barrels  to  4,716.  These  instances  show  what  can  and 
should  be  done  in  our  known  oil  fields. 

We  must  save  the  oil  after  it  leaves  the  well,  save  it  from  drain- 
ing off  and  sinking  into  the  soil,  save  it  from  leaking  away  at  pipe 
joinings,  save  it.  from  the  wastes  of  imperfect  storage. 

Then  we  come  to  the  refining  of  the  oil.  How  welcome  now  would 
be  the  knowledge  that  we  could  recover  what  was  thrown  away 
when  kerosene  was  petroleum's  one  great  fraction.  (The  loss  in 
refineries  is  still  startling,  some  14,556,000  barrels  last  year — 4J  per 
cent  of  the  crude  run  in  the  refineries.) 

The  self-interest  of  the  American  refiner,  notably  the  Standard  Oil 
Co.,  has  done  a  work  that  probably  no  mere  scientific  or  noncommer- 
cial impulse  could  have  equaled,  in  torturing  out  of  petroleum  the 
secrets  of  its  inmost  nature.  And  yet  the  thought  will  not  altogether 
give  place  that  in  that  residue  which  goes  to  the  making  of  roads  or 
to  be  burned  in  some  crude  way  there  may  be  things  chemical  that 
will  work  largely  for  man's  betterment.  This  is  the  fact,  too — that 
where  the  oil  is  produced  by  some  small  companies  which  have  not  the 
financial  ability  to  make  it  yield  its  full  riches  there  is  a  greater 
danger  of  loss  of  this  kind.  It  would  be  well  indeed  if  there  could  be 


CONSERVATION   THROUGH  ENGINEERING.  17 

such  regulation  as  would  require  that  all  petroleum  must  be  refined. 
That  this  is  done  generally  is  not  denied.  It  should  be  universal. 
And  all  the  skill  and  study  and  knowledge  of  the  ablest  of  chemists 
and  mechanicians  should  find  themselves  challenged  by  the  problem 
of  petroleum. 

(Coming  to  the  use  of  petroleum  in  its  various  forms  we  find  a 
field  of  promise.  The  engine  that  doubles  the  number  of  miles  that 
can  be  made  on  a  gallon  of  gasoline  doubles  our  supply.  There  is 
where  we  can  apply  the  principle  of  true  conservation — find  how 
little  you  need;  use  what  you  must,  but  treat  your  resource  with  re- 
spect. Has  the  last  word  been  said  as  to  the  carburetor?  Mechani- 
cal engineers  do  not  think  so.  Have  all  possible  mixtures  which  will 
save  oil  and  substitute  cheaper  and  less  rare  combustibles  therefor 
been  tried  ?  Men  by  the  hundred  are  making  these  experiments,  and 
almost  daily  the  quack  or  the  stock  promoter  comes  forward  with  the 
announcement  of  a  discovery  which  proves  to  be  a  revelation — a 
revelation  of  human  stupidity  or  criminal  cupidity.  On  this  line 
the  men  of  science  do  not  sing  a  song  of  the  richest  hope ;  they  shrug 
their  shoulders,  exclaiming  with  uplifted  hands:  "Well,  may  be, 
may  be." 

There  are  possible  substitutes  for  some  petroleum  products,  but 
not  for  the  whole  barrel  of  oil ;  furthermore,  petroleum  is  the  cheap- 
est material,  speaking  quantitatively,  from  which  liquid  fuels  and 
lubricants  can  be  made ;  therefore,  any  substitutes  obtained  in  quan- 
tity must  cost  more.  Alcohol  can  be  substituted  for  gasoline,  but 
only  in-  limited  quantity  and  at  increased  cost.  Benzol  from  by- 
product coking  ovens  also  can  be  used,  but  quantitatively  is  totally 
inadequate.  For  kerosene  no  quantitative  substitute  is  known.  Lu- 
bricants can  be  obtained  from  animal  and  vegetable  fats,  but  mostly 
are  inferior  in  quality,  and  there  seems  no  hope  of  obtaining  them  in 
quantity.  Fuel  oil  can  be  largely  supplanted  by  coal,  but  for  the 
internal-combustion  engine  there  is  no  quantitative  substitute. 

USE    THE  DIESEL  ENGINE. 

We  have  ventured  on  a  great  shipbuilding  program.  Our  people 
are  to  once  again  respond  to  the  call  of  the  sea.  On  private  ways  and 
on  Government  ways  ships  are  being  built  to  go  round  the  world — 
ships  that  are  to  burn  oil  under  boilers  and  produce  steam.  I  presume 
that  there  is  a  justification  for  this  policy,  perhaps  one  that  is  as  good, 
if  not  better,  than  can  be  made  for  the  railroads  of  the  West  pursuing 
the  same  policy.  I  submit,  however,  that  there  should  be  justification 
shown  for  the  construction  of  any  oil-burning  ship  which  does  not 
use  an  engine  of  the  Diesel  type.  To  burn  oil  under  a  boiler  and  con- 
vert it  into  steam  releases  but  10  per  cent  of  the  thermal  units  in 
the  oil,  whereas  if  this  same  fuel  oil  were  used  directly  in  a  Diesel 
engine,  30  to  35  per  cent  of  the  power  in  the  oil  would  be  secured. 


18  CONSERVATION   THROUGH  ENGINEERING. 

Substitute  the  internal-combustion  engine  for  the  steam  boiler  and 
we  multiply  by  three  or  three  and  one-half  the  supply  of  fuel  oil  in 
the  United  States.  Instead  of  our  fuel-oil  supply  being,  let  us  say, 
200,000,000  barrels,  it  would  at  once  rise  to  600,000,000  barrels  or 
700,000,000.  I  recognize  that  this  is  an  impractical  and  unrealizable 
hope  as  applied  to  things  as  they  are,  but  there  is  no  reason  why  this 
should  not  be  a  very  definite  policy  as  to  things  that  are  to  be. 

This  Government  might  itself  well  undertake  to  develop  an  engine 
of  this  type  for  use  on  its  ships,  tractors,  and  trucks.  We  simply  can 
not  afford  to  preach  economy  in  oil  when  we  do  not  promote  by 
every  means  the  use  of  the  internal-combustion  engine  for  its  con- 
sumption. No  other  one  thing  that  can  be  done  by  the  Government, 
our  industries,  or  the  people  will  save  as  much  oil  from  being  wasted 
and  thereby  multiply  the  real  production  of  the  United  States.  If 
such  engines  are  delicate  of  handling  and  need  specially  trained  en- 
gineers, which  appears  to  be  the  fact,  there  should  be  little  difficulty 
experienced  in  training  men  for  such  work.  A  nation  that  could 
educate  10,000  automobile  mechanics  in  60  days  might  indeed  de- 
velop 1,000  Diesel  engineers  in  a  year.  The  matter  is  of  too  great 
moment  for  delay.  It  touches  the  interest  of  everyone.  We  are  in 
the  petroleum  age,  and  how  long  it  will  last  depends  upon  our  own 
foresight,  inventiveness,  and  wisdom. 

WANTED A   FOREIGN    SUPPLY. 

Already  we  are  importers  of  petroleum.  We  are  to  be  larger  im- 
porters year  by  year  if  we  continue — and  we  will — to  invent  and 
build  machines  which  will  rely  upon  oil  or  its  derivatives  as  fuel. 
Our  business  methods  have  been  and  doubtless  will  continue  to  be 
developed  along  lines  that  make  a  continuing  oil  supply  a  necessity. 
Some  of  that  oil  must  come  from  abroad,  as  nearly  40,000,000  barrels 
did  last  year,  and  for  that  we  must  compete  with  the  world.  For 
while  we  are  the  discoverers  of  oil  and  of  the  methods  of  securing  it 
and  refining  it,  piping  it,  and  using  it,  our  pioneering  is  but  a  service 
unto  the  world. 

This  situation  calls  for  a  policy  prompt,  determined,  and  looking 
many  years  ahead.  For  the  American  Navy  and  the  American 
merchant  marine  and  American  trade  abroad  must  depend  to  some 
extent  upon  our  being  able  to  secure,  not  merely  for  to-day  but  for 
to-morrow  as  well,  an  equal  opportunity  with  other  nations  to  gain 
a  petroleum  supply  from  the  fields  of  the  world.  We  are  now  in  the 
world  and  of  it  in  every  possible  sense,  otherwise  our  Navy  and  our 
merchant  fleet  would  have  no  excuse.  No  one  needs  to  justify 
them — they  are  the  expression  of  an  ambition  that  carries  no  danger 
to  any  people.  For  their  support  we  can  ask  no  preference,  but  in 
their  maintenance  we  can  insist  that  they  shall  not  be  discriminated 
against. 


CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING.  19 

Sometime  since  I  presented  to  a  board  of  geologists,  engineers, 
and  economists  in  this  department  this  question : 

If  in  the  next  five  years  there  should .  develop  a  new  demand  for  petroleum 
over  and  above  that  now  existing,  which  would  amount  to  100,000,000  barrels 
a  year,  where  could  such  a  supply  be  found,  and -what  policy  should  be  adopted 
to  secure  it? 

The  conclusions  of  this  board  may  be  summarized  as  follows : 

(1)  Such  an  oil  need  could  not  be  met  from  domestic  sources  of  supply. 

(2)  It   could   not   be    assured   unless    equal    opportunities    were   given    our 
nationals  for  commercial  development  of  foreign  oils. 

(3)  Assurance  of  this   oil   supply   therefore  inevitably   entails   political   as 
well  as  commercial  competition  with  other  nationals,  as  other  nationals  con- 
trolling  foreign   sources    of   supply   have   adopted   policies   that    discriminate 
against,  hinder,  and  even  prevent  our  nationals  entering  foreign  fields. 

(4)  The  encouragement  of  and  effective  assistance  to  our  nationals  in  de- 
veloping foreign  fields  is  essential  to  securing  the  oil  needed. 

(5)  Commercial  control  by  our  nationals  over  large  foreign  sources  of  sup- 
ply will  be  essential  if  the  estimated  requirements  are  to  be  assured. 

(6)  It  is  necessary  that  all  countries  be  induced  to  abandon  or  adequately 
modify  present  discriminatory  policies  and  that  the  interest  of  our  nationals 
be  protected. 

(7)  Some    form    of    world- wide    oil-producing,    purchasing,    and    marketing 
agency  fostered  by  this  Government  seems  essential  to  assure  the  commercial 
control  over  sufficient  resources  to  meet  the  competition  of  other  nationals. 
England  has  apparently  adopted  such  a  policy. 

This  board  proposed  the  following  program  of  action : 

(1)  To  secure  the  removal  of  all  discriminations  to  the  end  that  our  na- 
tionals may  enjoy  in  other  countries  all  the  privileges  now  enjoyed  by  other 
nationals  in  ours: 

(a)  By  appropriate  diplomatic  and  trade  measures. 

( & )  By  securing  equal  rights  to  our  nationals  in  countries  newly  organized 
as  mandatories. 

(2)  To  encourage  our  nationals  to  acquire,  develop,  and  market  oil  in  for- 
eign countries: 

(a)  By  assured  adequate  protection  of^our  citizens  engaged  in  securing 
and  developing  foreign  oil  fields. 

(&)  By  promotion  of  syndication  of  our  nationals  engaged  in  foreign 
business,  in  order  to  effectually  conduct  oil  development  and  dis- 
tribution of  petroleum  and  its  products  abroad. 

(3)  Governmental  action — through  special  agency  or  board: 

(a)  Through  the  organization  of  a  subsidiary  governmental  corporation 
with  power  to  produce,  purchase,  refine,  transport,  store,  and  market 
oil  and  oil  products. 

(&)  Through  the  formation  of  a  permanent  petroleum  administration. 

(4)  To  assure  to  our  nationals  the  exclusive  opportunity  to  explore,  develop, 
and  market  the  oil  resources  of  the  Philippine  Islands,  provided  discriminatory 
policies  of  other  nations  against  our  nationals  are  not  abandoned  or  satisfac- 
torily modified. 

I  have  given  much  thought  during  the  past  year  to  this  problem 
of  adding  to  our  petroleum  supply,  and  it  has  seemed  to  me  but  fair 


r 


20  CONSERVATION   THKOUGH   ENGINEERING. 

that  we  should  first  make  every  effort  to  increase  the  domestic  supply 
through  the  methods  that  have  been  indicated — 

(1)  The  saving  of  that  which  is  now  wasted,  below  ground  and 
above  ground. 

(2)  The  more  intensive  use,  through  new  machinery  and  devices, 
ol  the  supply  which  we  have. 

(3)  The  development  of  oil  fields  on  our  withdrawn  territory  and 
in  new  areas  such  as  the  Philippines. 

In  addition,  we  must  look  abroad  for  a  supplemental  supply,  and 
this  may  be  secured  through  American  enterprise  if  we  do  these 
things : 

(1)  Assure  American  capital  that  if  it  goes  into  a  foreign  country 
and  secures  the  right  to  drill  for  oil  on  a  legal  and  fair  basis  (all  of 
which  must  be  shown  to  the  State  Department)  it  will  be  protected 
against  confiscation  or  discrimination.     This  should  be  a  known, 
published  policy. 

(2)  Require  every  American  corporation  producing  oil  in  a  foreign 
country  to  take  out  a  Federal  charter  for  such  enterprise  under  which 
whatever  oil  it  produces  should  be  subject  to  a  preferential  right  on 
the  part  of  this  Government  to  take  all  of  its  supply  or  a  percentage 
thereof  at  any  time  on  payment  of  the  market  price. 

(3)  Sell  no  oil  to  a  vessel  carrying  a  charter  from  any  foreign 
government  either  at  an  American  port  or  at  any  American  bunker 
when  that  government  does  not  sell  oil  at  a  nondiscriminatory  price 
to  our  vessels  at  its  bunkers  or  ports. 

The  oil  industry  is  more  distinctively  American  than  any  other  of 
the  great  basic  industries.  It  has  been  the  creation  of  no  one  class  or 
group  but  of  many  men  of  many  lands — the  hardy,  keen-eyed  pros- 
pector with  a  "  nose  for  oil "  who  spent  his  months  upon  the  deserts 
and  in  the  mountains  searching  for  seepages  and  tracing  them  to 
their  source ;  the  rough  and  two-fisted  driller,  a  man  generally  of  un- 
usual physical  strength,  who  -handled  the  great  tools  of  his  trade ;  the 
venturesome  "wildcatter,"  part  prospector,  part  promoter,  part 
operator,  the  "  marine  "  of  the  industry,  "  soldier  and  sailor  too  " ; 
the  geologist  who  through  his  study  of  the  anatomy  of  the  earth  crust 
could  map  the  pools  and  sands  almost  as  if  he  saw  them;  the  in- 
ventor ;  the  chemist  with  still  and  furnace ;  the  genius  who  found  that 
oil  would  run  in  a  pipe — these  and  many  more,  in  most  of  the 
sciences  and  in  nearly  all  of  the  crafts,  have  created  this  American 
industry.  If  they  are  permitted  they  will  reveal  the  world  supply  of 
oil.  And  upon  that  supply  the  industries  of  our  country  will  come 
to  be  increasingly  dependent  year  by  year. 

BY  WAY  OF  SUMMARY. 

It  would  seem  to  be  our  plain  duty  to  discover  how  little  csal  we 
need  to  use.  To  do  this  we  must  dignify  coal  by  grading  it  in  .terms 


CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING.  21 


not  merely  of  convenience  as  to  size,  but  in  terms  of  service  as  to  its 
power.  We  should  save  it,  if  for  no  better  reason  than  that  we  may 
sell  it  to  a  coal-hungry  world.  We  should  develop  water  power  as  an 
inexhaustible  substitute  for  coal  and  if  necessary  compel  the  coordi- 
nation of  all  power  plants  which  serve  a  common  territory.  New 
petroleum  supplies  have  become  a  national  necessity,  so  quickly  have 
we  adapted  ourselves  to  this  new  fuel  and  so  extravagantly  have 
we  given  ourselves  over  to  its  adaptability.  To  save  that  we  may  use 
abundantly,  to  develop  that  we  may  never  be  weak,  to  bring  together 
into  greater  effectiveness  all  power  possibilities — these  would  seem 
to  be  national  duties,  dictated  by  a  large  self-interest. 

I  have  gone  only  sufficiently  far  into  this  whole  question  to  realize 
that  it  is  as  fundamental  and  of  as  deep  public  concern  as  the  rail- 
road question  and  that  it  is  even  more  complex.  No  one,  so  far  as  I 
can  learn,  has  mastered  all  of  its  various  phases ;  in  fact,  there  are 
few  who  know  even  one  sector  of  the  great  battle  front  of  power.  A 
Foch  is  needed,  one  in  whom  would  center  a  knowledge  of  all  the 
activities  and  the  inactivities  of  these  three  great  industries,  which  in 
reality  are  but  a  single  industry.  We  should  know  more  than  we 
do,  far  more  about  the  ways  and  means  by  which  our  unequaled 
wealth  in  all  three  divisions  can  be  used  and  made  interdependent, 
and  the  moral  and  the  legal  strength  of  the  Nation  should  be  be- 
hind a  studied,  fact-based,  long-viewed  plan  to  make  America  the 
home  of  the  cheapest  and  the  most  abundant  and  the  most  imme- 
diately and  intimately  serviceable  power  supply  in  the  world.  If 
we  do  this,  we  can  release  labor  and  lighten  nearly  every  task.  We 
will  not  need  to  send  the  call  to  other  countries  for  men,  and  we 
can  distribute  our  industries  in  parts  of  the  country  where  labor  is 
less  abundant  and  where  homes  will  take  the  place  of  tenements.  One 
could  expand  upon  the  benefits  that  would  come  to  this  land  if 
a  rounded  program  such  as  has  been  but  skeletonized  here  could  be 
carried  out.  I  am  convinced  that  within  a  generation  it  will  be  ef- 
fected, because  it  will  be  necessary. 

The  simple  steps  now  obviously  needed  are  to  pass  those  primary 
bills  which  are  already  before  Congress  or  are  here  suggested.  But 
beyond  this  there  is  imperative  need  that  some  one  man  (an  assistant 
secretary  in  this  department  would  serve) — some  one  man  with  a 
competent  staff  and  commanding  all  the  resources  of  this  and  other 
departments  of  the  Government  shall  be  given  the  task  of  taking  a 
world  viewv  as  well  as  a  national  view  of  this  whole  involved  and 
growing  problem,  that  he  may  recommend  policies  and  induce  ac- 
tivities and  promote  cooperative  relationships  which  will  effect  the 
most  economical  production  of  light,  heat,  and  power,  which  is 
more  than'  the  first  among  the  immediate  practical  problems  of 


22  CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING. 

science,  as  Sir  William  Crookes  said,  for  it  is  foremost  among  the 
immediate  practical  problems  of  national  and  international  states- 
manship. 

LAND  DEVELOPMENT. 

I  wish  now  to  ask  consideration  for  another  matter  of  home  con- 
cern to  which  I  gave  attention  in  my  last  report  and  as  to  which 
the  intervening  year  has  strengthened  and  perhaps  broadened  my 
ideas — the  development  of  our  unused  lands. 

It  was  never  more  vital  to  the  welfare  of  our  people  that  a  cre- 
ative and  out-reaching  plan  of  developing  and  utilizing  our  natural 
resources  should  go  bravely  forward  than  it  is  to-day.  Ours  is  a 
growing  country,  and  as  its  social  and  industrial  superstructure 
expands  its  agricultural  foundation  must  be  broadened  in  propor- 
tion. The  normal  growth  of  the  United  States  now  requires  an  ad- 
dition of  6,300,000  acres,  to  its  cultivable  area  each  year,  which 
means  an  average  increase  of  17,000  acres  a  day. 

Fortunately,  the  opportunity  for  this  essential  expansion  exists 
not  only  in  the  West,  where  much  of  the  public  domain  is  yet  un- 
occupied, but  in  every  part  of  the  Republic.  We  have  a  great  fund 
of  natural  resources  in  the  very  oldest  States,  from  Maine  to  Louisi- 
ana, which  invite  and  would  richly  reward  the  constructive  genius 
of  the  Nation.  It  is  claimed  by  those  who  have  specialized  for  years 
on  the  subject  of  reclamation  that  the  control  and  utilization  of  flood 
waters  now  wasted  would  produce  within  the  next  10  years  more 
wealth  than  the  entire  cost  to  the  United  States  of  the  war  with 
Germany. 

After  every  other  war  in  our  history  the  work  of  internal  develop- 
ment has  gone  forward  by  leaps  and  bounds,  and  our  people  have 
thus  quickly  made  good  the  economic  wastes  of  the  conflict.  The 
needs  of  to-day  are  different  from  those  of  the  past  and  require  differ- 
ent treatment,  but  they  are  by  no  means  beyond  the  reach  of  en- 
lightened thought  and  action. 

More  than  a  year  ago  we  began  an  earnest  discussion  of  reconstruc- 
tion policies,  particularly  with  respect  to  the  land.  But  nothing  has 
been  done.  Not  one  line  of  legislation,  not  one  dollar  of  money  has 
been  provided  except  in  the  way  of  preliminary  investigation.  We 
stand  voiceless  in  the  presence  of  opportunity  and  idle  in  the  face  of 
urgent  national  need. 

A  PROGRAM  OF  PROGRESS. 

The  great  work  of  material  development  accomplished  in  the  past 
has  been  done  very  largely  by  private  capital  and  enterprise.  Doubt- 
less this  must  be  the  chief  reliance  for  progress  in  the  future.  We 
should  realize,  however,  that  this  method  has  involved  losses  as  well 


CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING.  23 

as  gains,  for  the  Nation  has  sometimes  been  too  prodigal  in  offering 
its  natural  resources  as  an  inducement  to  private  effort.  Not  only 
so,  but  with  the  exhaustion  of  the  free  public  lands  in  our  great  cen- 
tral valleys — the  most  remarkable  natural  heritage  that  ever  fell 
into  the  lap  of  a  young  nation — conditions  of  home  making  and  set- 
tlement have  radically  changed. 

-There  can  be  do  doubt  that  there  is  an  important  sphere  of  action 
which  the  Government  must  occupy  if  we  are  to  go  steadily  forward 
with  the  work  of  continental  conquest,  and  all  it  implies  to  the  future 
of  the  Nation,  but  in  suggesting  practicable  steps  of  progress  at  this 
time  I  do  not  forget  the  burden  of  taxation  which  confronts  our 
people  nor  the  delicate  and  difficult  task  which  Congress  is  called 
upon  to  perform  in  trying  to  keep  the  national  outgo  within  the 
national  income.  Hence,  I  am  now  suggesting  such  constructive 
things  as  the  Government  may  be  able  to  do  through  the  exercise  of 
its  powers  of  supervision  and  direction  and  with  the  smallest  pos- 
sible outlay  of  money. 

Under  this  head  I  put,  first,  the  matter  of  suburban  homes  for 
wage  earners;  second,  reclamation  of  desert,  overflow,  and  cut-over 
areas,  together  with  improvement  of  abandoned  farms,  under  a  sys- 
tem of  district  organization  which  may  be  made  to  finance  itself; 
third,  cooperation  with  various  States  in  the  work  of  internal  devel- 
opment. 

GARDEN  HOMES  FOR  THE  PEOPLE. 

There  is  no  more  baffling  problem  than  that  presented  by  the  con- 
tinued growth  of  great  cities,  but  it  is  a  problem  with  which  we  must 
sometime  deal.  It  bears  directly  on  the  high  cost  of  living  and  is, 
indeed,  largely  responsible  for  it.  Rent  is  based  on  land  values. 
Land  values  rise  with  increasing  population.  The  price  of  food  is 
closely  related  to  the  growing  disproportion  between  consumers  and 
producers,  resulting  from  urban  congestion. 

Here  is  Washington,  a  city  of  some  400,000  people,  doubtless 
destined  steadily  to  grow  until — a  Member  of  Congress  predicts — 
it  may  touch  2,000,000  twenty  years  hence.  Already  the  housing  prob- 
lem is  acute,  as  it  is  in  almost  every  other  large  American  city.  It 
would  be  a  pitiful  thing  if  the  provision  of  more  housing  facilities 
to  meet  the  needs  of  growing  population  meant  merely  more  con- 
gestion and  higher  rents,  with  an  ever-decreasing  degree  of  landed 
proprietorship  and  true  individual  independence.  Such  conditions, 
it  seems  to  me,  undermine  the  American  hearthstone  and  carry  a 
deep  menace  to  the  future  of  our  institutions.  I  believe  there  mugfc 
be  a  better  way,  and  that  the  time  has  come  when  we  should  make 
an  earnest  effort  to  find  it. 


24  CONSERVATION    THROUGH   ENGINEERING. 

Within  a  10-mile  circle  drawn  around  the  Capitol  dome  are  thou- 
sands of  acres  of  good  agricultural  land,  of  which  the  merest  frac- 
tion has  been  reduced  to  intensive  cultivation.  Much  of  it  is  waste- 
fully  used,  and  much  of  it  is  not  used  at  all.  Conditions  of  soil,  cli- 
mate, and  water  supply  are  good  and  represent  a  fair  average  for 
the  United  States.  Suburban  transportation  is  a  serious  problem 
in  some  localities  and  less  so  in  others,  but  tends  to  become  more 
simple  with  the  extension  of  good  roads  and  increasing  use  of  motor 
vehicles,  including  the  auto  bus. 

Somewhere  and  sometime,  it  seems  to  me,  a  new  system  must  be 
devised  to  disperse  the  people  of  great  cities  on  the  vacant  lands 
surrounding  them,  to  give  the  masses  a  real  hold  upon  the  soil,  and 
to  replace  the  apartment  house  with  the  home  in  a  garden.  Such 
a  system  should  enable  the  ambitious  and  thrifty  family  not  only 
to  save  the  entire  cost  of  rent,  but  possibly  half  the  cost  of  food, 
while  at  the  same  time  enhancing  its  standard  of  living  socially 
and  spiritually,  as  well  as  economically. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  there  is  no  better  place  to  demonstrate 
a  new  form  of  suburban  life  than  here  at  the  National  Capital, 
where  we  may  freely  draw  upon  all  the  resources  of  the  govern- 
mental departments  for  expert  knowledge  and  advice  and  where 
the  demonstration  can  readily  command  wide  publicity  and  come 
under  the  observation  of  the  Nation's  lawmakers.  And  I  am  expect- 
ing that  this  experiment  will  be  made.  Such  a  plan  of  town  or  com- 
munity life,  rather  than  city  life,  should  be  extended  to  every  other 
large  city  in  the  Nation.  A  simple  act  of  legislation,  accompanied 
by  a  moderate  appropriation  for  organization  and  educational  work, 
would  enable  the  department  to  put  its  facilities  at  the  service  of 
local  communities  and  of  the  industries  throughout  the  United 
States.  This  form  of  national  leadership  would  be  of  value  both 
to  investors  in  the  local  securities  and  to  the  home  builders  them- 
selves. If  the  work  of  land  acquisition  and  construction,  together 
with  the  organization  of  community  settlements  resulting  therefrom, 
were  conducted  under  the  supervision  of  the  State  or  the  Federal 
Government  it  would  safeguard  the  character  of  the  movement  from 
every  point  of  view. 

Therefore,  I  put  first  among  the  constructive  things  which  may 
be  done  by  the  exercise  of  the  Government's  power  of  supervision 
and  direction,  with  the  smallest  outlay  of  money,  this  matter  of  pro- 
I  viding  suburban  homes  for  our  millions  of  wage  earners. 

RECLAMATION  BY  DISTRICT  ORGANIZATION. 

The  provision  of  garden  homes  for  millions  of  city  workers  will 
contribute  largely  to  the  Nation's  food  supply  and  become  in  time  a 
most  effective  influence  in  reducing  excessive  cost  of  living  for  many 


CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING.  25 

of  our  people.  It  will  not,  of  course,  solve  the  problem  of  increas- 
ing the  number  of  farms  and  the  area  of  cultivation  to  meet  the  needs 
of  growing  population.  Neither  will  it  enable  us  to  expand  our  home 
market  rapidly  and  largely  enough  to  keep  the  country  on  an  even 
keel  of  prosperity. 

We  must  go  forward  with  the  development  of  natural  resources  as 
we  have  done  for  the  past  three  centuries.  And  we  must  recognize 
at  the  outset  that  conditions  have  changed  with  the  depletion  of  the 
public  domain  to  the  point  where  it  offers  comparatively  little  in  the 
way  of  cultivable  lands. 

We  have  now  to  deal  principally  with  lands  in  private  ownership. 
This  calls  for  a  new  point  of  view  and  for  the  application  of  a 
somewhat  different  principle  than  that  which  has  governed  our 
reclamation  policy  heretofore.  Moreover,  reclamation  is  no  longer 
an  affair  of  one  section  of  the  United  States.  The  day  has  come  when 
it  must  be  nationalized  and  extended  to  all  parts  of  the  Republic. 
.  To  the  deserts  of  the  West  we  have  brought  the  creative 
of  water,  and  we  must  find  a  way  to  go  on  with  this  work.  But  it  is 
of  equal  importance  that  we  should  liberate  rich  areas  now  held  in 
bondage  by  the  swamp,  convert  millions  of  acres  of  idle  cut-over  lands 
to  profitable  use,  and  raise  from  the  dead  the  once  vigorous  agricul- 
tural life  of  our  abandoned  farms. 

One  more  fundamental  consideration — we  have  outlived  our  day  of 
small  things.  Whether,  we  would  or  not,  we  are  compelled  by  the 
inexorable  law  of  necessity  arising  out  of  existing  physical  condi- 
tions to  cooperate,  to  work  together,  and  to  employ  large-scale  opera- 
tions, and  on  this  principle  we  should  move :  Not  what  the  Govern- 
ment can  do  for  the  people,  but  what  the  people  can  do  for  them- 
selves under  the  intelligent  and  kindly  leadership  of  the  Government. 

We  have  an  instrument  at  hand  in  the  Reclamation  Service  which 
has  dealt  with  every  phase  of  the  problem  which  now  confronts  us, 
and  with  such  high  average  success  as  to  command  the  entire  confi- 
dence of  Congress  and  the  country.  It  has  turned  rivers  out  of  their 
natural  beds,  reared  the  highest  dams  in  existence,  transported  water 
long  distances  by  every  form  of  canal,  conduit,  and  tunnel,  installed 
electric  power  plants,  cleared  land,  provided  drainage  systems,  con- 
structed highways  and  even  railroads,  platted  townsites,  and  erected 
buildings  of  various  sorts.  In  this  experience,  obtained  under  a 
variety  of  physical  and  climatic  conditions,  it  has  developed  a  body  of 
trained  men  equal  to  any  constructive  task  which  may  be  assigned  to 
it  in  connection  with  reclamation  and  settlement  in  any  part  of  the 
country. 

True  economic  reclamation  is  a  process  of  converting  liabilities 
into  assets — of  transforming  dormant  natural  resources  into  agencies 
of  living  production.  When  such  a  process  is  intelligently  applied 


26  CONSERVATION    THROUGH    ENGINEERING. 

it  should  be  able  to  pay  its  own  bills  without  placing  fresh  burdens 
on  the  national  treasury.  It  is  in  the  confident  belief  that  such  is 
actually  the  case  that  I  suggest  the  policy  of  reclamation  by  means 
of  local  districts,  financed  on  the  basis  of  their  own  credit  but  with 
the  fullest  measure  of  encouragement  and  moral  support  of  the 
Government,  practically  expressed  through  the  Reclamation  Service. 
In  this  connection  it  seems  worth  while  to  recall  that  with  a  net 
expenditure  of  $119,000,000  the  Reclamation  Service  has  created 
taxable  values  of  $500,000,000  in  the  States  where  it  has  operated. 
The  ratio  is  better  than  three  to  one,  and  that  is  a  wider  margin  of 
security  than  is  usually  demanded  by  the  most  conservative  banking 

n methods.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  overflow  lands  of  the 
South,  the  cut-over  areas  of  the  Northwest,  and  the  abandoned  farm 
districts  of  New  England  and  New  York  and  other  States  would 
do  quite  as  well  as  the  deserts  of  the  West  if  handled  by  such  an 
_organization. 

^What  is  the  legitimate  function  of  the  Government  in  connection 
with  reclamation  districts  to  be  financed  entirely  upon  their  own 
credits  without  the  aid  of  national  appropriations?  I  should  say 
that  the  Government,  with  great  advantage  to  the  investor,  the  land- 
owner, the  future  settler,  and  the  general  public,  might  do  these 
things : 

1.  Employ  its  trained,  experienced  engineers,  attorneys,  and  econo- 
mists in  making  a  thorough  investigation  of  all  the  factors  involved 
in  a  given  situation,  to  be  followed  by  a  thorough  official  report  upon 
the  district  proposed  to  be  formed. 

2.  Offer  the  district  securities  for  public  subscription  in  the  open 
market.     This,  of  course,  would  follow  the  actual  organization  of  the 
district  and  the  approval  of  its  proceedings  by  the  Government's 
legal  experts. 

3.  Construct  the  works  of  reclamation  with  proceeds  of  district 
bond  sales,  and  administer  the  system  until  it  becomes  a  "  going 
concern,"  when  it  may  be  safely  confided  to  its  local  officers. 

The  most  obvious  advantage  of  Government  cooperation  is  the 
fact  that  it  would  assure  the  service  of  a  body  of  engineers,  builders, 
and  administrators  trained  in  the  actual  work  of  reclamation.  This 
advantage,  as  compared  with  the  management  that  might  be  had 
in  a  sparsely  settled  local  district,  would  often  make  all  the  dif- 
ference between  success  and  failure.  Unquestionably  it  would  ma- 
terially reduce  the  interest  rate  on  district  bonds  and  greatly  facili- 
tate their  sale  in  the  open  market. 

There  are  other  advantages  less  obvious  but  really  more  impor- 
tant. Experience  has  shown  that  great  enterprises  can  best  be  han- 
dled under  centralized  control.  This  control,  to  be  effective,  must 
extend  from  the  initiation  to  the  completion  of  the  project.  There 


CONSERVATION   THROUGH    ENGINEERING.  27 

can  be  no  assurance  of  this  when  the  management  is  left  to  the 
electorate  of  a  local  district,  and  without  such  assurance  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  command  the  support,  first,  of  the  landowners  whose  con- 
sent is  essential  to  the  formation  of  the  district;  next,  of  the  in- 
vestors who  must  supply  the  money;  finally,  of  the  settlers  who 
must  purchase  and  develop  the  land  in  order  that  the  object  of  the 
enterprise  may  be  realized.  The  Government  can  give  the  assur- 
ance of  precisely  that  quality  of  unified,  centralized,  permanent,  and 
responsible  control  that  is  required  to  command  the  confidence  of 
all  the  factors  in  the  situation.  X 

There  is  another  advantage  of  Government  cooperation  that  will  | 
inure  greatly  to  the  benefit  of  the  settler.     The  Government  may  | 
readily  apply  the  policy  it  now  uses  in  connection  with  privately  / 
owned  lands  within  reclamation  projects.     It  requires  the  owners; 
to  enter  into  a  contract  by  which  they  agree  to  accept  a  certain' 
maximum  price  for  their  land  if  sold  within  a  given  period  of  years. 
This  price  is  based  upon  the  value  of  the  land  before  reclamation. 
There  are  many  instances,  particularly  of  swamp  and  cut-over  areas, 
where  land  that  may  be  bought  for  $10  an  acre  and  reclaimed  at  a\ 
cost  of  $25  to  $50  per  acre,  has  an  actual  market  value  of  $100  to  i 
$200  per  acre  the  moment  it  is  put  into  shape  for  cultivation.     I£_ 
the  Government,  by  means  of  a  contract  with  the  local  district, 
undertakes  the  work  of  reclamation  and  settlement  and  does  this 
work  at  actual  cost,  the  settler  will  generally  save  enough  to  pay 
for  all  his  improvements  and  equipment. 

The  crowning  consideration  is  the  fact  that,  because  of  all  these 
advantages,  the  work  of  reclamation  would  actually  be  accomplished, 
while  to-day  it  is  not  being  done  except  in  the  far  West,  and  ac- 
complished without  the  aid  of  Government  appropriations. 

SOLDIER-SETTLEMENT  LEGISLATION. 

In  the  foregoing,  attention  has  been  called  to  those  things  which 
may  be  accomplished  by  the  exercise  of  the  Government's  powers 
of  supervision  and  direction  with  the  smallest  outlay  of  money. 
In  all  this  I  have  been  speaking  of  reclamation  for  the  sake  of  rec- 
lamation. 

The  proposed  soldier-settlement  legislation  stands  on  an  entirely 
different  footing.  The  primary  object  is  not  to  reclaim  land 
to  reward  our  returned  soldiers  with  the  opportunity  to  obtain 
employment  and  larger  interest  in  the  proprietorship  of  the  coun- 
try. The  policy  is  based  on  a  sense  of  gratitude  for  heroic  service, 
not  on  economic  considerations.  This  is  the  answer  to  those  who 
have  criticized  it  as  class  legislation  or  the  proposal  to  grant  spe- 
cial privileges  to  one  element  of  our  citizenship  or  as  a  plunge  into 


irely 
but 


28  CONSERVATION    THROUGH    ENGINEERING. 

socialism.  Frankly,  we  avow  our  purpose  to  do  for  the  soldier 
what  we  would  not  think  of  doing  for  anybody  else  and  what 
would  not  be  justified  solely  as  a  matter  of  reclamation. 

Many  measures  of  soldier  legislation  have  been  introduced  into 
Congress.  Only  one  of  these  has  been  favorably  reported.  This 
was  introduced  by  Representative  Mondell.  of  Wyoming,  on  the 
first  day  of  the  present  special  session,  embodying  the  plan  of  recla- 
mation and  community  settlement  brought  forward  by  this  depart- 
ment in  the  spring  of  1918. 

The  measure  has  been  much  misunderstood  and  sometimes  deliber- 
ately misrepresented.  In  the  first  place,  it  was  not  put  forward  as 
the  complete  solution  of  the  soldier  problem.  It  was  at  no  time 
supposed  or  expected  that  all  of  the  4,800,000  men  and  women  en- 
gaged in  the  war  with  Germany  would  or  could  take  advantage  of 
its  provisions.  It  fortunately  happens  that  the  vast  majority 
quickly  found  their  places  in  the  national  life.  Of  the  remainder,  a 
very  large  proportion  may  be  classified  as  "  city  minded."  They 
have  no  taste  for  farm  life  but  would  be  better  served  by  vocational 
training  and  opportunities  to  enter  upon  remunerative  trades  or 
professions.  There  is  an  element  of  "  country  minded,"  and  of 
these  some  150,000  have  made  application  for  opportunities  of  em- 
ployment and  home-making  under  the  terms  of  this  bill.  Largely 
they  are  men  who  have  had  agricultural  experience  but  who  can  not 
obtain  farms  of  their  own  without  very  considerable  cash  advances 
and  other  assistance  which  the  Government  could  render.  It  is  for 
this  element  that  the  policy  is  designed. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  the  plan  would  be  applied  only  in 
the  West  and  South.  The  truth  is  that  it  has  been  the  purpose 
from  the  first  to  extend  it  to  every  State  where  feasible  projects 
could  be  found,  and  that  our  preliminary  investigations  lead  us 
to  believe  this  will  include  every  State  in  the  Union. 

The  wide  discussion  of  the  measure  has  been  highly  educational  to 
the  country,  and  some  of  the  criticism  is  of  constructive  character. 
For  example,  attention  has  been  sharply  called  to  the  fact  that  in  cer- 
tain localities  there  are  individual  farms  well  suited  to  our  purpose 
which  may  often  be  had  at  a  price  representing  rather  less  than  the 
value  of  their  improvements.  These  are  the  so-called  "  abandoned 
farms  "  so  numerous  in  the  Northeastern  States.  In  some  cases  they 
are  interspersed  with  land  now  cultivated,  so  situated  that  it  is  not 
possible  to  bring  together  a  large  number  of  contiguous  farms  as  the 
basis  of  a  Government  project. 

In  New  England  and  elsewhere  public  sentiment  strongly  favors  a 
modification  of  the  pending  measure  which  will  enable  the  purchase 
of  individual  farms  rather  than  community  settlement.  This  would 


CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING.  29 

be  practicable  only  in  localities  where  a  sufficient  number  of  farms, 
even  if  not  contiguous,  could  be  had  to  make  possible  the  necessary 
supervision  and  instruction,  together  with  cooperative  organization 
for  the  purchase  of  supplies  and  sale  of  products.  Without  these 
advantages  the  plan  of  soldier  settlement  would  fail  in  many  in- 
stances. My  information  is  that  these  conditions  could  be  met.  Not 
only  so,  but  it  is  urged  that  existing  farm  communities  would  be 
inspired  by  the  presence  of  soldier  settlers  and  benefited  by  the 
presence  of  soldier  settlers  by  their  cooperative  buying  and  selling 
agencies. 

Another  criticism  of  the  pending  measure  is  directed  to  the  amount 
of  the  first  payment  the  soldier  settler  is  required  to  make.  As  the 
bill  now  stands  it  calls  for  5  per  cent  on  the  land,  25  per  cent  on  im- 
proTements  and  lire  stock,  and  40  per  cent  on  implements  and  other 
equipment.  It  has  been  urged  by  some  friends  of  soldier  settlement 
that  no  first  payment  should  be  required,  but  that  the  Government 
should  make  advances  of  100  per  cent  in  view  of  the  soldiers'  peculiar 
claim  upon  national  consideration.  It  might  be  feasible  to  do  this 
in  the  case  of  community  settlements.  But  it  could  not  be  done  in  the 
case  of  scattered  and  individual  farms,  at  least  without  abandoning 
the  principles  of  sound  business. 

In  the  case  of  community  settlement  the  soldier  literally  "  gets 
in  on  the  ground  floor."  Starting  with  a  territory  that  is  entirely 
blank  so  far  as  homes  and  improvements  are  concerned,  he  finds  him- 
self in  a  place  where  community  values  remain  to  be  created.  When 
he  buys  an  improved  farm  in  a  settled  neighborhood  the  situation  is 
precisely  reversed.  In  both  cases  there  is  or  will  be  "  unearned  incre- 
ment," or  society-created  values;  but  in  the  one  case  he  gets  the  in- 
crement, while  in  the  other  case  he  pays  it.  Obviously,  a  larger 
advance  would  be  justified  in  one  case  than  in  the  other. 

ALASKA. 

One  01  the  first  recommendations  made  by  me  in  my  report  of 
seven  years  ago  was.  that  the  Government  build  a  railroad  from 
Seward  to  Fairbanks  in  Alaska.  Five  years  ago  you  intrusted  to 
me  the  direction  of  this  work.  The  road  is  now  more  than  two- 
thirds  built,  and  Congress  at  this  session,  after  exhaustively  examin- 
ing into  the  work,  has  authorized  an  additional  appropriation  suffi- 
cient for  its  completion.  The  showing  made  before  Congress  was  that 
the  road  had  been  built  without  graft :  every  dollar  has  gone  into 
actual  work  or  material.  It  has  been  built  without  giving  profits  to 
any  large  contractors,  for  it  has  been  constructed  entirely  by  small 
contractors  or  by  day's  labor.  It  has  been  built  without  touch  of 
politics :  every  man  on  the  road  has  been  chosen  exclusively  for  abil- 

155084°— 19 3 


30  CONSERVATION   THROUGH    ENGINEERING. 

ity  and  experience.  It  has  been  well  and  solidly  built  as  a  perma- 
nent road,  not  an  exploiting  road.  It  has  been  built  for  as  little 
money  as  private  parties  could  have  built  it,  as  all  competent  inde- 
pendent engineers  who  have  seen  the  road  advise. 

Edwin  F.  Wendt,  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission,  in 
charge  of  valuation  of  the  railroads  of  the  United  States  from  Pitts- 
burgh to  Boston,  after  an  investigation  into  the  manner  in  which 
the  Alaskan  Railroad  was  constructed  and  its  cost,  reported  to  me 
as  follows : 

In  concluding,  it  is  not  amiss  to  aga*in  state  that  after  the  full  study  which 
was  given  to  the  property  during  our  trip,  we  are  satisfied  that  the  project  is 
being  executed  rapidly  and  efficiently  by  men  of  experience  and  ability.  It  is 
believed  that  it  is  being  handled  as  cheaply  as  private  contractors  could  handle 
it  under  the  circumstances. 

The  road  has  not  been  built  as  soon  as  expected  because  each  year 
we  have  exhausted  our  appropriation  before  the  work  contemplated 
had  been  done.  We  could  not  say  in  October  of  one  year  what  the 
cost  of  anything  a  year  or  more  later  would  be,  and  we  ran  out  of 
money  earlier  than  anticipated.  It  has  not  been  built  as  cheaply  as 
expected  because  it  has  been  built  on  a  rising  market  for  everything 
that  went  into  its  construction — from  labor,  lumber,  food  supplies, 
machinery,  and  steel  to  rail  and  ocean  transportation.  I  believe, 
however,  it  can  safely  be  said  that  no  other  piece  of  Government  con- 
struction or  private  construction  done  during  the  war  will  show  a 
less  percentage  of  increase  over  a  cost  that  was  estimated  more  than 
four  years  ago. 

The  men  have  been  well  housed  and  well  fed.  Their  wages  have 
been  good  and  promptly  paid ;  there  has  been  but  one  strike,  and  that 
was  four  years  ago  and  was  settled  by  Department  of  Labor  experts 
fixing  the  scale  of  wages.  The  men  have  had  the  benefit  of  a  system 
of  compensation  for  damages  like  that  in  the  Reclamation  Service  and 
Panama  Canal.  They  have  had  excellent  hospital  service,  and  our 
camps  and  towns  have  been  free  of  typhoid  fever  and  malaria.  That 
the  men  like  the  work  is  testified  by  the  fact  that  hundreds  who 
"  came  out "  the  past  two  years,  attracted  by  the  high  wages  of  war 
industries,  are  now  anxious  to  return  to  Alaska. 

There  has  been  but  one  setback  in  the  construction,  and  that  was 
the  washing  out  of  12  miles  of  tracks  along  the  Nenana  River. 
This  is  a  glacial  stream  which,  when  the  snows  melt,  comes  down  at 
times  with  irresistible  force.  In  this  instance  it  abandoned  its  long 
accustomed  way  and  cut  into  a  new  bed  and  through  trees  that  had 
been  standing  for  several  generations,  tearing  out  part  of  the  track 
which  had  been  laid. 

The  work  of  locating  and  constructing  the  road  has  be'en  left  in  the 
hands  of  the  engineers  appointed  by  yourself.  The  only  instruction 


CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING.  31 

which  they  received  from  me  was  that  they  should  build  the  road 
as  if  they  were  working  for  a  private  concern,  selecting  the  best 
men  for  the  work  irrespective  of  politics  or  pressure  of  any  kind. 
As  a  result,  we  have  a  force  that  has  been  gathered  from  the  construc- 
tion camps  of  the  western  railroads,  made  up  of  men  of  experience 
and  proved  capacity.  That  they  have  done  their  work  efficiently, 
honestly,  and  at  reasonable  cost  is  my  belief. 

It  is  not  possible  during  the  construction  of  a  railroad  to  tell 
what  it  costs  per  mile  because  all  the  foundation  work,  the  construc- 
tion of  bases  from  which  to  work,  the  equipment  for  construction, 
and  much  of  the  material  is  a  charge  which  must  be  spread  over  the 
entire  completed  line.  The  best  estimate  that  can  be  made  to-day  as 
to  the  newly  constructed  road  is  that  it  has  cost  between  $70,000  and 
$80,000  per  main-line  mile,  or  between  $60,000  and  $70,000  per  mile 
of  track. 

This  cost  per  mile  includes  the  building  of  the  most  difficult  and 
expensive  stretch  of  line  along  the  entire  route  from  Seward  to  Fair- 
banks— that  running  along  Turnagain  Arm,  which  is  sheer  rock 
rising  precipitously  from  the  sea  for  nearly  30  miles.  There  are 
miles  of  this  road  which  have  cost  $200.000  per  mile.  Even  to  blast 
a  mule  trail  in  one  portion  of  this  route  cost  $25,000  a  mile. 

The  only  Government-built  railroad — that  across  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama — cost  $221,052  per  mile.  The  only  two  recently  built  rail- 
roads in  the  United  States  are  (1)  the  Virginian,  built  by  H.  H. 
Rogers,  which  cost  exclusive  of  equipment  $151,000  per  mile,  with 
labor  at  from  $1.35  to  $1.75  per  day  and  all  machinery,  fuel,  rails, 
and  supplies  at  its  door,  and  (2 )  the  Milwaukee  line  to  Puget  Sound, 
which  is  estimated  as  having  cost  $130,000  per  mile  exclusive  of 
equipment. 

The  work  has  been  conducted  with  its  main  base  at  Anchorage, 
which  is  at  the  head  of  Cook  Inlet.  The  point  was  chosen  as  the 
nearest  point  from  which  to  construct  a  railroad  into  the  Matanuska 
coal  fields.  That  was  the  primary  objective  of  the  railroad,  to  get  at 
the  Matanuska  coal.  From  Anchorage  it  was  also  intended  to  drive 
farther  north  through  the  Susitna  Valley  and  across  Broad  Pass, 
and  to  the  south  along  Turnagain  Arm  toward  the  Alaska  Northern 
track.  To  secure  coal  for  Alaska  was  the  first  need.  So  in  addition 
to  Anchorage  as  a  base,  one  was  also  started  at  Nenana,  on  the  Tanana 
River,  from  which  to  reach  the  Nenana  coal  fields  lying  to  the  south. 
If  these  two  fields  were  open,  one  would  supply  the  coast  of  Alaska 
and  one  the  interior.  This  program  has  been  acted  upon,  with  the 
result  that  the  Matanuska  field  is  open  to  tidewater  with  a  down- 
grade road  all  the  way.  The  Nenana  road  has  been  pushed  far 
enough  south  to  touch  a  coal  mine  near  the  track,  which  may  obviate 
the  immediate  necessity  for  reaching  into  the  Nenana  field  proper. 


32  CONSERVATION    THROUGH   ENGINEERING. 

There  is  an  open  stretch  across  Broad  Pass  to  connect  the  Susitna 
Valley  with  the  road  coming  down  from  Nenana.  This  gap  closed, 
there  will  be  through  connection  between  Seward  and  Fairbanks. 

MATANUSKA    COAL. 

By  decisions  of  the  Commissioner  of  the  Land  Office  all  of  the 
claims  in  the  Matanuska  coal  field  were  set  aside,  and  by  act  of 
Congress  a  leasing  bill  was  put  into  effect  over  the  entire  field. 
Under  this  law  a  number  of  claims  must  be  reserved  to  the  Govern- 
ment. The  field  was  surveyed,  and  some  of  the  most  promising  por- 
tions of  the  field  have  been  so  reserved. 

Two  leases  have  been  entered  into  by  the  Government,  one  with 
Lars  Netland,  a  miner,  who  has  a  backer,  Mr.  Fontana,  a  business 
man  of  San  Francisco,  and  the  other  with  Oliver  La  Duke  and  asso- 
ciates. There  are  many  thousands  of  acres  in  this  field  which  are 
open  for  lease  and  which  will  be  leased  to  any  responsible  parties 
who  will  undertake  their  development.  Government  experts  who 
have  examined  this  field  do  not  promise  without  further  exploring  a 
larger  output  of  coal  from  this  field  than  150,000  tons  a  year. 

The  population  of  Alaska  has  fallen  off  during  the  war.  She  sent, 
I  am  told,  5,000  men  into  the  Army,  the  largest  proportion  to  popu- 
lation sent  by  any  part  of  the  United  States.  The  high  cost  of  labor 
and  materials  closed  some  of  the  gold  mines,  and  the  attractive  wages 
offered  by  war  industries  drew  labor  from  Alaska  to  the  mainland. 
All  prospecting  practically  closed.  But  with  the  return  of  peace 
there  is  evidence  of  a  new  movement  toward  that  Territory  which 
should  be  given  added  confidence  in  its  future  by  the  completion  of 
the  Alaskan  Railroad.  There  is  enough  arable  land  in  Alaska  to 
maintain  a  population  the  equal  of  all  those  now  living  in  Norway, 
Sweden,  and  Finland,  and  all  that  can  be  produced  in  those  countries 
can  be  produced  in  Alaska.  The  great  need  is  a  market,  and  this  will 
be  found  only  as  the  mining  and  fishing  industries  of  the  country 
develop. 

SAVE  AND   DEVELOP   AMERICANS. 

When  the  whole  story  is  told  of  American  achievement  and  the 
picture  is  painted  of  our  material  resources,  we  come  back  to  the 
plain  but  all-significant  fact  that  far  beyond  all  our  possessions  in 
land  and  coal  and  waters  and  oil  and  industries  is  the  American  man. 
To  him,  to  his  spirit  and  to  his  character,  to  his  skill  and  to  his  in- 
telligence is  due  all  the  credit  for  the  land  in  which  we  live.  And 
that  resource  we  are  neglecting.  He  may  be  the  best  nurtured  and 
the  best  clothed  and  the  best  housed  of  all  men  on  this  great  globe. 
He  may  have  more  chances  to  become  independent  and  even  rich. 
He  may  have  opportunities  for  schooling  nowhere  else  afforded. 


CONSERVATION  THROUGH  ENGINEERING.  33 

He  may  have  a  freedom  to  speak  and  to  worship  and  to  exercise  his 
judgment  over  the  affairs  of  the  Nation.  And  yet  he  is  the  most  neg- 
lected of  our  resources  because  he  does  not  know  how  rich  he  is, 
how  rich  beyond  all  other  men  he  is.  Not  rich  in  money — I  do 
not  speak  of  that — but  rich  in  the  endowment  of  powers  and  possi- 
bilities no  other  man  ever  was  given. 

Twenty-five  per  cent  of  the  1,600,000  men  between  21  and  31  years 
of  age  who  were  first  drafted  into  our  Army  could  not  read  nor  write 
our  language,  and  tens  of  thousands  could  not  speak  it  nor  under- 
stand it.  To  them  the  daily  paper  telling  what  Von  Hindenberg  was 
doing  was  a  blur.  To  them  the  appeals  of  Hoover  came  by  word  of 
mouth,  if  at  all.  To  them  the  messages  of  their  commander  in  chief 
were  as  so  much  blank  paper.  To  them  the  word  of  mother  or  sweet- 
heart came  filtering  in  through  other  eyes  that  had  to  read  their 
letters. 

Now  this  is  wrong.  There  is  something  lacking  in  the  sense  of  a 
society  that  would  permit  it  in  a  land  of  public  schools  that  assumes 
leadership  in  the  world. 

Here  is  raw  material  truly,  of  the  most  important  kind  and  the 
greatest  possibility  for  good  as  well  as  for  ill. 

Save !  Save !  Save !  This  has  been  the  mandate  for  the  past  two 
years.  It  is  a  word  with  which  this  report  is  replete.  But  we  have 
been  talking  of  food  and  land  and  oil  while  the  boys  and  young  men 
that  are  about  us  who  carry  the  fortune  of  the  democracy  in  their 
hands  are  without  a  primary  knowledge  of  our  institutions,  our  his- 
tory, our  wars  and  what  we  have  fought  for,  our  men  and  what  they 
have  stood  for,  our  country  and  what  its  place  in  the  world  is. 

The  marvelous  force  of  public  opinion  and  the  rare  absorbing 
quality  of  the  American  mind  never  was  shown  more  clearly  than 
by  the  fact  that  out  of  these  men  came  a  loyalty  and  a  stern  devotion 
to  America  when  the  day  of  test  came.  Had  Germany  known  what 
we  know  now,  it  would  have  been  beyond  her  to  believe  that  America 
could  draft  an  army  to  adventure  into  war  in  Europe.  There  should 
not  be  a  man  who  was  in  our  Army  or  our  Navy  who  has  the  ambi- 
tion for  an  education  who  should  not  be  given  that  opportunity — in- 
deed, induced  to  take  it — not  merely  out  of  appreciation  but  out  of  the 
greater  value  to  the  Nation  that  he  would  be  if  the  tools  of  life  were 
put  into  his  hand.  There  is  no  word  to  say  upon  this  theme  of 
Americanization  that  has  not  been  said,  and  Congress,  it  is  now 
hoped,  will  believe  those  figures  which,  when  presented  nearly  two 
years  ago,  were  flouted  as  untrue.  The  Nation  is  humiliated  at  its 
own  indifference,  and  action  must  be  the  result. 

To  save  and  to  develop,  I  have  said,  were  equally  the  expression    / 
of  a  true  conservation.    What  is  true  as  to  material  things  is  true  y 


34  CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING. 

as  to  human  beings.  And  once  given  a  foundation  of  health  there  is 
no  other  course  by  which  this  policy  may  be  effected  than  to  place 
at  the  command  of  every  one  the  means  of  acquiring  knowledge.  The 
whole  people  must  turn  in  that  direction.  We  should  enable  all, 
without  distinction,  to  have  that  training  for  which  they  are  fitted  by 
their  own  natural  endowment.  Then  we  can  draw  out  of  hiding  the 
talents  that  have  been  hidden.  The  school  will  yet  come  to  be  the 
first  institution  of  our  land,  in  acknowledged  preeminence  in  the  mak- 
ing of  Americans  who  understand  why  they  are  Americans  and  why 
to  be  one  is  worth  while.1 

1  Assistant  Secretary  Herbert  Kaufman  before  the  Senate  Committee  on  Education 
presented  facts  and  figures  which  accentuate  the  seriousness  of  the  national  situation. 
Among  other  things  he  said : 

"  The  South  leads  in  illiteracy,  but  the  North  leads  in  non-English  speaking.  Over  17 
per  cent  of  the  persons  in  the  east-south  Central  States  hare  nerer  been,  to  school. 
Approximately  16  per  cent  of  the  people  of  Passaic,  N.  J.,  must  deal  with  their  fellow 
workers  and  employers  through  interpreters.  And  13  per  cent  of  the  folk  in  Lawrence 
and  Fall  Hirer,  Mass.,  are  utter  strangers  in  a  strange  land. 

"  The  extent  to  which  our  industries  are  dependent  upon  this  labor  is  perilous  to  all 
standards  of  efficiency.  Their  ignorance  not  only  retards  production  and  confuses  admin- 
istration, but  constantly  piles  up  a  junk  heap  of  broken  humans  and  damaged  machines 
which  cost  the  Nation  incalculably. 

"  It  is  our  duty  to  interpret  America  to  all  potential  Americans  in  terms  of  protection 
as  well  as  of  opportunity ;  and  neither  the  opportunities  of  this  continent  nor  that 
humanity  which  is  the  genius  of  American  democracy  can  be  rendered  intelligible  to 
these  8,000,000  until  they  can  talk  and  read  and  write  our  language. 

"  Steel  and  iron  manufacturers  employ  58  per  cent  of  foreign-born  helpers ;  the 
slaughtering  and  meat-packing  trades,  61  per  cent ;  bituminous-  coal  mining,  62  per  cent ; 
the  silk  and  dye  trade,  34  per  cent ;  glass-making  enterprises,  38  per  cent ;  woolen  mills, 
62  per  cent ;  cotton  factories,  69  per  cent ;  the  clothing  business,  72  per  cent ;  boot  and 
shoe  manufacturers,  27  per  cent ;  leather  tanners,  57  per  cent ;  furniture  factories,  59 
per  cent ;  glove  manufacturers,  33  per  cent ;  cigar  and  tobacco  trades,  33  per  cent ;  oil 
refiners,  67  per  cent ;  and  sugar  refiners,  85  per  cent. 

"You  will  agree  with  me  that  future  security  compels  attention  to  such  concentra- 
tions of  unread,  unsocialized  masses  thus  conveniently  and  perilously  grouped  for 
misguidance. 

"  They  lire  in  America,  but  America  does  not  live  in  them.  How  can  all  be  '  free  and 
equal '  until  they  hare  free  access  to  the  same  sources  of  self-kelp  and  an  equal  chance 
to  secure  them? 

"  Illiteracy  is  a  pick-and-shovel  estate,  a  life  sentence  to  mentality.  Democracy  may 
not  have  fixed  classes  and  survive.  The  first  duty  of  Congress  is  to  preserve  opportunity 
for  the  whole  people,  and  opportunity  can  not  exist  where  there  is  no  means  of  in- 
formation. 

"  It  is  a  shabby  economy,  an  ungrateful  economy  that  withholds  funds  for  their 
betterment.  The  fields  of  France  cry  shame  upon  those  who  are  content  to  abandon 
them  to  their  handicap. 

"  The  loyal  service  of  immigrant  soldiers  and  sailors  commit  us  to  instruct  and 
nationalize  their  brothers  in  breed. 

"  The  spirit  in  which  these  United  States  were  conceived  insists  that  the  Republic 
remove  the  cruel  disadvantage  under  which  so  many  native  boras  despairingly  carry  on. 

"  How  may  they  reason  soundly  or  plan  sagely  ?  The  man  who  knows  nothing  of 
the  past  can  find  little  in  the  future.  The  less  he  has  gleaned  from  'human  experience 
the  more  he  may  be  expected  to  duplicate  its  signal  errors.  No  argument  is  too  ridiculous 
for  acceptance;  no  sophistry  can  seem  far-fetched  to  a  person  without  the  sense  to 
confound  it. 

"  Anarchy  shall  never  want  fer  mobs  while  the  uninformed  are  left  at  the  mercy 
of  false  prophets.  Those  who  have  no  way  to  estimate  the  worth  of  America  are 
unlikely  to  value  its  institutions  fairly.  Blind  to  facts,  the  Wildest  one-eyed  argument 
can  sway  them. 

"  Not  until  we  can  teach  our  illiterate  millions  the  truths  about  the  land  to  which 
they  have  come  and  in  which  they  were  born  shall  its  spirit  reach  them — not  until 
they  can  read  cau  we  set  them  right  and  empower  them  to  inherit  their  estate. 


CONSERVATION   THROUGH   ENGINEERING.  35 

'"  If  we  continue  to  neglect  them,  there  are  influences  at  work  that  will  sooner  or 
later  convince  them  who  now  fail  to  appreciate  the  worth  of  our  Government  that  the 
Government  itself  has  failed — crowd  the  melting  pot  with  class  hates  and  violence 
and  befoul  its  yield. 

"  We  must  not  be  tried  by  inquest.  We  demand  the  right  to  vindicate  the  merit 
of  our  systems  wherever  their  integrity  is  questioned  or  maligned. 

"  We  demand  the  right  to  regulate  the  cheating  scales  upon  which  the  Eepublic 
is  weighed  by  its  ill-wishers. 

"  We  demand  the  right  to  protect  unintelligence  from  Esau  bargains  with  hucksters 
of  traitorous  creeds. 

"  We  demand  the  right  to  present  our  case  and  our  cause  to  the  unlettered  mass, 
whose  benightedness  and  ready  prejudices  continually  invite  exploitation. 

"  We  demand  the  right  to  vaccinate  credulous  inexperience  against  Bolshevism  and 
kindred  plagues. 

"  We  demand  the  right  to  render  all  whose  kind  we  deem  fit  to  fight  for  our  flag  fit 
to  vote  and  prosper  under  its  folds. 

"  We  demand  the  right  to  bring  the  American  language  to  every  American,  to  qualify 
each  inhabitant  of  these  United  States  for  self-determination,  self-uplift,  and  self- 
defense." 

Dr.  Philander  P.  Claxton,  Commissioner  of  Education,  in  his  analysis  of  the  illiteracy 
figures  of  the  census,  said  : 

"  Illiteracy  is  not  confined  to  any  one  race  or  class  or  section.  Of  the  5,500,000 
illiterates  as  reported  by  the  census  of  1910,  nearly  3,225,000  were  whites,  and  more 
than  1.500.000  were  native-born  whites. 

"  That  illiteracy  is  not  a  problem  of  any  one  section  alone  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  in 
1910  Massachusetts  had  7,469  more  illiterate  men  of  voting  age  than  Arkansas ;  Michigan, 
2,663  more  than  West  Virginia  ;  Maryland,  2,352  more  than  Florida ;  Ohio,  more  than 
twice  as  many  as  New  Mexico  and  Arizona  combined ;  Pennsylvania,  5,689  more  than 
Tenne-ssee  and  Kentucky  combined.  Boston  had  more  illiterates  than  Baltimore,  Pitts- 
burgh more  than  New  Orleans,  Fall  River  more  than  Birmingham,  Providence  nearly 
twice  as  many  as  Nashville,  and  the  city  of  Washington  5,000  more  than  the  city  of 
Memphis. 

"  It  is  especially  significant  that  of  the  1,534,272  native-born  white  illiterates  reported 
in  the  1910  census  1,342,372,  about  87.5  per  cent,  were  in  the  open  country  and  small 
towns,  and  only  191,900,  or  12.5  per  cent,  were  in  cities  having  a  population  of  2,500  and 
over.  Of  the  2,227,731  illiterate  negroes  1,834,458,  or  82.3  per  cent,  were  in  the  country, 
and  only  393,273,  or  17.7  per  cent,  were  in  the  cities." 


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